Wilderness (Poetry)

This isn’t the life I’d have chosen
this isn’t the plot I once dreamed
there are thorns where there ought to be roses
and the gardener’s moody and mean

There are thistles, tall nettles and brambles
there are snakes hidden sly in long grass
subtle traps to trip up or snare ankles
any warmth from the sun doesn’t last

Crowds of weeds strangle most of the flowers
and the air’s tainted bitter with death
in the dust-laden dwindling hours
when the ghost of lost hope holds its breath

There are graves levelled-out, near-forgotten
all that’s good lying deep as old bones
love’s perfect young flesh aged and rotten
while the wilderness crumbles its stones

There are trees where the wind comes to parlez
and the rain’s many tongues lick their bark
and the plump feral pigeon coos early
as the dawn squeezes out from the dark

Then I listen to catch some suggestion
how this rule of neglect can go on
but the spirits seem deaf to my question
now the god of the garden has gone