Come Into My Garden
Allen Grossman
Come into my garden. This August is the last.
The night, the last summer night.
This hour, the last hour of the night before sunrise.
I think of you, day and night. –Dilectissima,
come into my garden, before the sun. Take my hand
in the dark.... “How cold the air.”
*
“How cold you are.” The first step down is
a high step. Sublime breath
swells and subsides in the garden among leaves,
each one an emerald sentence
spoken by the oak in the dark. In its mysterious well,
the oak stands sentinel.
*
—Here is a path. It is for considering.
Look left. Consider, in this dark:
“Tiger Lilly.”
Look right. Consider:
“Bleeding Heart.” Listen.
Someone comes.
*
It is parent
dawn.
She: “Look at the path!” He: “what do you see?”
She: “The path is strewn with letters.”
“Dilectissima, out of these letters I can form no word.” “
Allen, out of these letters no word can be formed.”
