The Garden
Through summer's heady afterglow In gardens fifteen years ago We tried to conjure there A person out of air.
Memory, mixing near with far, Fiddles connexions where none are: Perhaps, we now contrive, A person did arrive.
Bearings on moving points are bound To cast no sequence but a round; We measure and collate But cannot put it straight, And guzzle roses at the hour That could have held that cryptic power, Half-asking what it meant, Half-c cdng half-assent.
Wanting to yield, yet just too-old, And just too young quite to withhold, We bag the middle way: You ask me first, we say.
From thinncd or trembling lips we hear Only what makes us wince or sneer: Yes, the response inane, Or No, the inhumane.
Debunking what our hearts adore, Rebunking what our brains abhor, Indoors we now adjourn.
Inward at last we turn.
Our mirror shows one loving face Pleased to inhabit a blank space. To plead I'm all alone We should be on our own.
KINGSLEY AMIS
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