I return...

[llieno]

I walk through the gardens
and stop
at the lake with the branches
kissing the water with more grace
than the squabbling ducks and
the sole sentinal of the swan
watching me as
I watch the ripples on the water
in the pastel painted picture
of the evening sunlight and
I feel like singing that song
your song that you never wrote
for me

Solitude in a sunset sanctuary
peace perfected on the lakeshore
but not within me
for I look through the ripples
on the water to
the other side
and hear your voice telling me
that
on an overture of the leaves' orchestra
the breath of the breeze through
the emerald canopy and
I am back again in the gardens
all alone

so shall I sit upon the shore
lay on the grass with its
sprinkling of daises and there
I shall sleep
whilst still awake as
a squirrel jumps the chasm from
the oak to the horse chestnut
high above me but
before the darkening sky
and the other sky
in the ripples on the water
where I know you are
watching me
as I dream of winter

these gardens are not mine nor
do they belong to the swan
now silently swimming across the surface
nor do they belong to
you
but maybe there is a place
where the twilight shadows will envelop me
where I can hide from
the hyperactive flies twisting in the air
and from you
and from the ripples on the water
distorting the world as if
this lakeshore
was sketched onto my heart
by an artist with a broken pencil
drunk on the white wine of a spring evening

I feel
I shall
make ripples on the water
and make the ducks stop their dance
for a second
and write your song onto the lake
for the setting sun to sing
as I walk back through the gardens
and stop