Page 67 - WTP Vol. IX #5

david hamilton
Garden Ghazal
The sky goes grey, and the wind doth chill. And that’s all right with my garden.
There’s always next year, the idea of it, No better top-dressing for a garden.
Before the trees leaf out, ephemerals flower, Ephemerals faithful to my garden.
I don’t need a new hoe, not if I sharpen The old one I left out in my garden.
Whether to kneel in or to look out on, That is the gardener’s question.
I’m often fishing for the nibbling thought That often slips away in my garden.
Sometimes I yield to the lily, sometimes To the passerine gardening from it.
I love that moment of seeing something new That Love points out from a bench by our garden.
Most of the maple turns goldfinch yellow.
A few red leaves vary the way of the garden.
This year I voted early; you bet I did!
And then spent the whole day in my garden.
I lug pail after pail of compost uphill To scatter over a drowsy garden.
I’d better climb slowly, hauling those pails. My heart pounds before reaching my garden.
All ten blocks home from Prairie Lights I retrace the path through my garden.
A flagstone walk, each covered with moss, Each with neighbors to know in my garden.
It’s my most reliable way of falling sleep, Mapping again my unfolding garden.
Hamilton’s collection of essays, A Certain Arc, came out in 2019 from Ice Cube Press. Otherwise he leads a quiet life with his wife, two dogs and a cat, keeps his eyes on the neighborhood birds and gardens, and slips poems whenever he can into unsuspecting magazines like WTP (where he’s a contributing editor).
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