THE NIGHT GARDEN

My first garden was the night sky, the obsidian floor

of the temple treasury strewn with ruby and topaz,

the five sapphire jasmine flowers of the Southern Cross,

the great Kohinoor of night-blooming Sirius.

Especially when all are in bed, then I am alone

with those Chaldean sages, ploughing lines between lights

in the soft loam of the darkness with our eyes, seeing

glimmering heroes and monsters in the tactile night.

World turns and pale stars spin like Van Gogh’s vision.

The exotic orchids of rare novae bloom.

Poppy-red Betelgeuse and Aldebaran nod. Spur-wing plovers

mourn beneath the great cauliflower of a Méliès moon.