| Title | : | Poems For Mary |
|---|---|---|
| Author | : | Ian McDonald |
| Release | : | 2024-10-06 |
| Kind | : | ebook |
| Genre | : | Fiction & Literature, Books, Literary Fiction |
| Size | : | 483528 |
| Preface To The Poems 1. The Matchbox 2. Wild Horses 3. The Struggle 4. The Starching Iron 5. Star Of Love 6. Praise Song For Mary 7. The Silver Brooch 8. Flowers For The Home 9. How My Son Was Born 10. THE Almond Tree 11. What It Was Like Once Forever 12. Gifts 13. Unwritten Diary 14. Routines 15. Forgotten In The Dance 16. Late Marigolds 17. The Coverlet 18. Smell Of Basil 19. Poetry 20. Gone To Get Ribbons 21. Toasting The Moon 22. Valentine 23. Essequibo Anniversary 24. How Handsome You Look 25. Moon In Old Age 26. 35th Anniversary 27. River Dancer 28. Masterpiece 29. Pots 30. Acts Of Kindness 31. Her Tasks Done Well 32. Nightfall 33. Zoey's Cake 34. The Sound Of Making Butter 35. The Lemon Tree 36. The Comforter 37. Break 38. The Arrival Of Happiness 39. Camp-Fire 40. Forecast 41. "I Will Not Let You Die My Love" 42. What We Want Of Love 43. The Last Dance MARY'S GARDEN GARDEN POEMS As golden afternoon transmutes into silver evening and then into velvet darkness fretted by stars I sit to read and think and dream. It is a place of peace and beauty and therefore truths are very likely to be revealed. Where I am is the garden which my wife has created. God bless her and those who have helped her — Alston, Kenneth, Andy — for what she has quietly achieved over these many years. It is as much a work of art as a painting by a master spirit or a piece of perfect music by a composer connected to the spheres behind the radiant sun and the serenely floating moon. How fortunate I am to step from days of hurly-burly living and the often fractious tedium of coping with ordinary chores and life's sudden sink-holes into this haven of green peace and flowers in the wind. It is but a step indeed and life is transformed. How many possess such benefit for a life-long time? If you are a believer make a holy sign, if you do not believe then bow in gratitude for the favour great Nature has been pleased to bestow. On evenings when I sit in Mary's garden just as it is getting dark a humming-bird comes to hover and suck the honey-dew from the myriad flowers all around. It is never more than one hummingbird, I can't understand why. It cannot be the same humming-bird for more than twenty years but I have come to think it is. Under the skies of darkening red or deepening silver-blue or the last golden light of a perfect day it darts and shivers among the flowers as I watch. It has entranced me all these years. A very few times it has not come and I have been bereft and I have researched my day to see what harm or hurt I might have done. Nothing so beautiful as its brightness in the evening air — an incandescent blessing, incomparable intricacies of flight, a shimmering amid the green leaves. I am completely silent in wonder. It is the Spirit of the Garden. Long after I have gone I like to think it will be coming to gleam and hover among the flowers in the evening light. And perhaps our grandchildren, should they be so blessed, will in their turn gaze in wonder at its shimmering beauty. |
