The garden

I rest my head upon the earth

and watch the sun set slowly through the long, tall grass

in the overgrown garden where I used to play as a child.

It was as magical a wilderness back then too,

neglected by my grandmother because of her ancient arthritic fingers.

Her rich laughter embroidered the days I spent exploring this place

and her wisdom meant she would anticipate my questions

and prepare kind words and smiles to meet them.

I would give her wild flowers I had picked,

and she would give me hot chocolate.

When I grew up I learned how to look after this garden.

I weeded, mowed, I raked and sowed, I tilled and toiled.

I set to work with pesticide and herbicide. I worked hard, and at last

it became a place where I could entertain on bright summer evenings,

sharing chilled wine with friends to soothe my solitude with the chime of toasts

as we celebrated our fragile glass stemmed crop of glistening light.

The doctors showed me the scan.

The tumours looked like beautiful wild flowers blossoming within me.

A course of treatment was agreed, and we set to work with chemotherapy.

It didn't go to plan. In my condition I couldn't look after the garden as I should,

and it ran to seed once more,

and so now I rest my head upon the earth

and watch the sun set slowly through the long, tall grass.

The only lasting monument we can have is a place where we have been

that is not altered by our presence or our passing. So look upon what I have seen,

in this place, and in the moments that come after everything else is forgotten

know me without knowing it, and I will know you.