Every way ends, every road,
every foot-path leads at last
to the hill-crest -
then you retrace your steps,
or find the same slope on the other side,
precipitate.
I have had enough -
border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax lilies
herbs, sweet-cress.
O for some sharp swish of a branch -
there is no scent of resin
in this place,
no taste of bark, or coarse weeds,
aromatic, astringent -
only border on border of scented pinks.
Have you seen fruit under cover
that wanted light -
pears wadded in cloth,
protected from the frost,
melons, almost ripe,
smothered in straw?
Why not let the pears cling
to the empty branch?
All your coaxing will only make
a bitter fruit -
let them cling, ripen of themselves,
test their own worth,
nipped, shriveled by the frost,
to fall at last but fair
with a russet coat.
Or the melon -
let it bleach yellow in the winter light,
even tart to the taste -
it is better to taste of frost -
the exquisite frost -
than of wadding and of dead grass.
For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life.
I want wind to break,
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads,
fling them about with dead leaves -
spread the path with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince -
leave half-trees, torn, twisted
but showing the fight was valiant.
O to blot out this garden
to foget, to find a new beauty
in some terrible
wind-tortured place.
