Unfinished (Poetry)

All those many, many lines left unattended —
thought’s exotic weeds pale in their long-ago garden
abandoned to the mercies of passing seasons
dried paper buds amidst life’s blowing dust —
those small patches of bold colour half-remembered now
like fading infatuations
who have lost old passion’s power
and forget their promised names — given up
all claim to who they might once have been...

waiting under the snow their intended meaning sleeps
growth suspended — stunted by sorrow’s stasis
or grief’s paralysing grip
as years roll in to smother the idea
of ever finishing the work begun
and so my garden languishes — untouched
except for the odd bird who hovers there
stops to feed awhile — picks out a shiny seed
from a dream-sown hybrid barely legible
and evolving leaf and tendril in the wild
unevenness of its flowering pattern —
the stuttering ragged rhythms of
the never-ending poem.