Secret Garden 1
Being the secret love poems
I write to Clare at midnight
while she is upstairs, asleep.
They make up for the things
I can no longer say because
I am uptight, or under pressure,
or working too hard. Or maybe
because we are quarreling over
something stupid. So these are
some of the seeds I wanted to plant
but never did because I was busy.
They are also the things
that I would like Clare and Becky
to remember me by if I should
suddenly pass away without being
able to say good-bye. My parents
left me nothing but bitterness.
I want my wife and child to have
a garden they can wander through
without my being there, knowing
I have cultivated these thoughts,
at night, sleepless, without them.
A deeply personal legacy, Roger. That is a beautiful thing.
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I am just re-reading these poems again. I wrote them 25 years ago, in 1991, just after losing my own parents. We didn’t know that Clare’s mother would follow a year later. I love the poems, but they are so personal. I am double thinking about publishing them all. Maybe I’ll just do extracts. I’m not sure yet. I do feel that I am on a mission with this, though!
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I know what you mean about personal! Sometimes you just want to keep those to yourself… But we are happy that you shared.
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I think that it is time to make these poems more public. I am working on them right now. Great fun to revisit them 25 years on. There is a secret here too, and all will be revealed.
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Oh! I’m intrigued!
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