This Is the Garden

Carl Larsson

This is the Garden

this is the garden: colours come and go,

frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing

strong silent greens serenely lingering,

absolute lights like baths of golden snow.

This is the garden: pursed lips do blow

upon cool flutes within wide glooms, and sing

(of harps celestial to the quivering string)

invisible faces hauntingly and slow.

This is the garden. Time shall surely reap

and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled,

in other lands where other songs be sung;

yet stand They here enraptured, as among

the slow deep trees perpetual of sleep

some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.

E.E. Cummings

One of my top 20, if I had such a thing. "Yet stand They here enraptured" - gets me every time. Even the repeated "This is the garden" pulls me in. "Night's outer wing" - as if Night were a dark bird with its wings outstretched. 'The slow deep trees perpetual of sleep" as if sleep were a forest. Oh I hold this poem close. Such beauty. These words we can speak into the silence, these images we can invoke - any moment we wish to - how wonderful is poetry? Not all the things labeled Poetry really are. But THIS, this is poetry. "Frail azures", "strong silent greens"? Mr. Cummings, thank you.