Secret Garden 2
Five a.m.: The moon on the back porch
shines with light as bright as day. It’s cold,
much too cold for August. Orion is back. To the left,
in the East, he has hoisted himself over the horizon.
Winter can’t be far behind. Upstairs, in bed, I can
hear you twisting and turning, looking for me in your
sleep. I am not there. The garden is magic beneath
the moon-shadow playing on flower and plant. Withered,
it is all dried up from summer’s heat. A false light
casts moving shadows as whispers of clouds murmur
close to the moon’s ear. Orion heralds the bitterness
to come. The long bright winter nights, aurora borealis,
more than a dream, a vision dancing in brittle
air that crackles and snaps in changing sheets of color.
I know you are there, upstairs, waiting for me,
hoping I will sneak quietly back to bed,
waiting for my footstep on the stair.
What will you do when I am no longer there?
rogermoorepoet 
Very detailed description of a life moment. I like the way you put in into the context of someone waiting for you to return.
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Thank you, Jane. I am glad you like it. I changed the last line after a comment by one of my very observant commentators (thank you Mr. Cake). I may well revise the whole poem, just polish it a little.
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The stair that is no longer there… I know I am misreading it but that struck me.
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I am not sure what struck you exactly, but if it’s the same thing that struck me when you mentioned it, then I think we have no further cause for concern. Good catch, as my daughter says!
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She also usually says “thank you!”
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Very Interesting: I have just done a quick revision. When one thing is altered, many more revisions spring to mind. I’ll restructure the whole poem. I have been thinking about so doing, but have avoided it. It will be done. Often one word or one comma, out of place and untrue, suggest that the whole edifice must be torn down and rebuilt. Thank you … it needed doing … it will be done … I have been remiss!
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I liked the ambiguity actually. I will be over shortly.
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I was swept away there until the end! Roger! 😥 I kind of like this time of year – before snow, when the trees are bare. It’s a bleak beauty. Like the garden all dormant and waiting….
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Thanks, Meg. I have been totally surprised by these poems I wrote so long ago. They are indeed “secret” gardens. So glad you like them. The late autumn landscape is barren: we wait for something to cover it (snow) or to rejuvenate it it (spring and the hope of rebirth). Thank you for making this journey with me.
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The pleasure is all mine!
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An interesting piece and a question many of us ask?
Dwight
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I was asking them twenty-five years ago and I am still asking them. Thank you for being here with me.
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My pleasure! Keep on writing! Dwight
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Why does anyone else write at all, Roger, when you write like this?
-j
http://www.thestoneist.com
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Ah, Jan: because what you write is so personal to you and brings you to life on your own page. When you visit me in the spring I will take a stone and chip at it with a hammer and allow you to rejoice in my amateur enthusiasms! You too have your own speciality and your moments of brilliance that far outshine mine.
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So beautiful, but so sad…
And I think, maybe in that moment, we look to the stars and see our loved ones’ shining lights…
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In Oaxaca, on the Day of the Dead, they strew marigolds — cempasúchiles — along the pathway to the front door so that the dead may find the glowing way to their houses and return to their loved ones. The thought is so beautiful that I must believe in it. They are not far away, our loved ones; in another room perhaps, aware and listening, heart-sore and waiting.
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In an eternity, the wait isn’t really that long…
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