THE GARDEN

Far back, in the most remote times with their fresh colors,

Already and without knowing it I must have begun to bring

Everyone into the shadowy garden—half-overgrown,

A kind of lush, institutional grounds—

Singly or in groups, into that green recess. Everything

Is muffled there; they walk over a rich mulch

Where I have conducted them together into summer shade

And go on bringing them, all arriving with no more commotion

Than the intermittent rustling of birds in the dense leaves,

Or birds’ notes in chains or knots that embroider

The sleek sounds of water bulging over the dam’s brim:

Midafternoon voices of chickadee, kingbird, catbird;

And the falls, hung in a cool, thick nearly motionless sheet

From the little green pond to shatter perpetually in mist

Over the streambed. And like statuary of dark metal

Or pale stone around the pond, the living and the dead,

Young and old, gather where they are brought: some nameless;

Some victims and some brazen conquerors; the shamed; the haunters;

The harrowed; the cherished; the banished—or background figures,

Old men from a bench, girl with glasses from school—brought beyond

Even memory’s noises and rages, here in the quiet garden.