Summer at Rose Cottage

for Kathleen

Petals plastering the earth,
floppy, loose, lopsided petals
from the rose-bewildered fence –
while beside them hop and dance
the hedge-sparrow and the blackbird.

And a bullfinch perches on
a variety of rose,
and a poppy breaks the silence
with an orange syllable,
and a foxglove by the shed
hoodwinks a bulldozing bee.

In the summer at Rose Cottage
all the voices are permitted
of the bird and flower and small tree
that are earth’s guests in the garden.
A human visitor must listen
to the other voices speaking
and his own word-thoughts fall silent
onto earth, and Earth, like petals
in a mid-June afternoon.