a place for everyone passionate about parks, gardens and green space
Poetry and Prose
Parks, gardens and green spaces are consistently recurring subjects, settings and backdrops in literature, poetry and song, interweaving our written culture as they do our villages, towns and cities. From, to mention just a few, the Garden of Eden in the Bible, Homer, Pliny, Persian, Chinese and Japanese poets, Shakespeare's plays, John Milton's Paradise Lost, Jane Austin's Mansfield Park, Alexander Pope's Epistle to Burlington, the poems of Dylan Thomas to the songs of Blur, Courtney Barnett, Ghostface Killah, Beach House and Feist
Elegy for a Park
The labyrinth has vanished. Vanished also
those orderly avenues of eucalyptus,
the summer awnings, and the watchful eye
of the ever-seeing mirror, duplicating
every expression on every human face,
everything brief and fleeting. The stopped clock,
the ingrown tangle of honeysuckle,
the garden arbour with its whimsical statues,
the other side of evening, the trill of birds,
the mirador, the lazy swish of a fountain,
are all things of the past. Things of what past?
if there were no beginning, nor imminent ending,
if lying in store for us is an infinity
of white days alternating with black nights,
we are living now the past we will become.
We are time itself, the indivisible river.
We are Uxmal and Carthage, we are the perished
walls of the Romans and the vanished park,
the vanished park these lines commemorate.
Jorges Luis Borges
The Tarrying Garden
Here are no vistas, Piece by piece unfolds.
Stand by the rock. The lotus and the fish,
In still pale yellows, greens and fluid golds
Startle the sky. Or if you wish
Stare at a single slab of cursive script
Sealed in the whitewash, passionate, bone-strong
Crafted, uncrafted, singular, and stripped
Of all superfluous charm. Or walk along
The covered walks, the courtyards and the pools,
The zigzags of embodied hesitation,
A strict game where, within given rules
You may throw dice or follow inclination.
The tarrying garden, piecemeal or entire;
Meander, tarry, amble, pause, admire.
Vikram Seth
The Hunchback in the Park
The hunchback in the park
A solitary mister
Propped between trees and water
From the opening of the garden lock
That lets the trees and water enter
Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark
Eating bread from a newspaper
Drinking water from the chained cup
That the children filled with gravel
In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship
Slept at night in a dog kennel
But nobody chained him up.
Like the park birds he came early
Like the water he sat down
And Mister they called Hey Mister
The truant boys from the town
Running when he had heard them clearly
On out of sound.
Past lake and rockery
Laughing when he shook his paper
Hunchbacked in mockery
Through the loud zoo of willow grove
Dodging the park keeper
With his stick that picked up leaves.
And the old dog sleeper
Alone between nurses and swans
While the boys among willows
Made the tigers jump out of their eyes
To roar on the rockery stones
And the groves were blue with sailors
Made all day until bell time
A woman figure without fault
Straight as a young elm
Straight and tall from his crooked bones
That she might stand in the night
After the locks and chains
All night in the unmade park
After the railings and shrubberies
The birds the grass the trees the lake
And the wild boys innocent as strawberries
Had followed the hunchback
To his kennel in the dark
Dylan Thomas
In Golden Gate Park that day
In Golden Gate Park that day
a man and his wife were coming along
thru the enormous meadow
which was the meadow of the world
He was wearing green suspenders
and carrying an old beat-up flute
in one hand
while his wife had a bunch of grapes
which she kept handing out
individually
to various squirrels
as if each
were a little joke
And then the two of them came on
Thru the enormous meadow
which was the meadow of the world
and then
at a very still spot where the trees dreamed
and seemed to have waiting thru all time
for them
they sat down together on the grass
without looking at each other
and ate oranges
without looking at each other
and put the peels
in a basket which they seemed
to have brought for that purpose
without looking at each other
And then
He took his shirt and his undershirt off
but kept his hat on
sideways
and without saying anything
fell asleep under it
And his wife just sat there looking
at the birds which flew about
calling to each other
in the stilly air
as if they were questioning existence
or trying to recall something forgotten
But then finally
she too lay down flat
and just lay there looking up
at nothing
yet fingering the old flute
which nobody played
and finally looking over
at him
without any particular expression
except a certain awful look
of terrible depression
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the wood and hills! No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Park
Why would he come
Back through the park
You thought that you saw him
But no you did not
It's not him who'd come across
The sea to surprise you
Not him who would know
Where in London to find you
With sadness so real
That it populates
The city and leaves
You homeless again
Steam from the cup
And snow on the path
The seasons have changed
From the present to past
The past
The past
Turns whole to half
The past
Why would he come
Back through the park
You thought that you saw him
But no you did not
Who can be sure
Of anything through
The distance that keeps you
From knowing the truth
Why would you think
Your boy could become
The man who could make you
Sure he was the one
The one
My one
My one
Song by Feist (aka Leslie Feist) from the Album The Reminder
Dogs in the Park
The precise yet furtive etiquette of dogs
Makes them ignore the whistle while they talk
In circlesnround each other, one-man bonds
Deferred in pauses of this man-made walk
To open vistas to a past of packs
That raven round the stuccoed terraces
And scavenge at the mouth of Stone Age caves;
What man proposes dog on his day disposes
In litter round both human and canine graves,
Then lifts his leg to wash the gravestones clean,
While simultaneously his eyes express
Apology and contempt; his master calls
And at the last and sidelong he returns,
Part heretic, part pack, and jumps and crawls
And fumbles to communicate and fails
And then they leave the park, the leads are snapped
On to the spiky collars, the tails wag
For no known reason and the ears are pricked
To search through legendary copse and crag
For legendary creatures doomed to die
Even as they, the dogs, were doomed to live.
Louise McNeice
Suitcases and Muddy Parks
You say I am a lying child
I say I’m not
you say there you go again
You say I am a rebellious child
I say no I’m not
you say there you go again
Quite frankly mum I’ve never seen a rebellious child before and when my mates said jump in that puddle and race you through the park
(y’know, the muddy one)
didn’t think about the mud.
When you said why you are dirty!
I could feel the anger in your voice
I still don’t know why.I said I raced my mates through the park.
You said it was deliberate.
I said I didn’t I mean I did but it wasn’t.
You said I was lying,
I said no I am not.
You said there you go again.
Later in the dawn of adolescence it was time for my leave
I with my suitcase, social worker,
you with your husband,
walked our sliced ways.
Sometimes I run back to you like a child
through a muddy park,
adult achievements tucked under each arm,
I explain them with a child-like twinkle,
thinking any mother would be proud…
Your eyes, desperately trying hard to be wise and unrevealing, reveal all.
Still you fall back into the heart of the same rocking chair saying
There you go again.
And I did.
And I have.
Lemn Sissay
The Gentle Waves Pavilion
A pool as green as pea soup. Four sleek fish,
Red as pimentos, push through the bubbly scum.
A vagrant sparrow from a rocky niche
Looks critically on. Two lovers come
To gaze at the fish and foreigner in the park
And talk and cuddle by the moss-trunked tree
And with a pen-knife hack their names through the bark
For (if the tree survives) posterity.
Vikram Seth
Child's Park Stones
In sunless air, under pines
Green to the point of blackness, some
Founding father set these lobed, warped stones
To loom in the leaf-filtered gloom
Black as the charred knuckle-bones
Of a giant or extinct
Animal, come from another
Age, another planet surely. Flanked
By the orange and fuchsia bonfire
Of azaleas, sacrosanct
These stones guard a dark repose
And keep their shapes intact while sun
Alters shadows of rose and iris —-
Long, short, long —- in the lit garden
And kindles a day's-end blaze
Colored to dull the pigment
Of azaleas, yet burnt out
Quick as they. To follow the light's tint
And intensity by midnight
By noon and throughout the brunt
Of various weathers is
To know the still heart of the stones:
Stones that take the whole summer to lose
Their dream of the winter's cold; stones
Warming at core only as
Frost forms. No man's crowbar could
Uproot them: their beards are ever-
Green. Nor do they, once in a hundred
Years, go down to drink the river:
No thirst disturbs a stone's bed.
Epistle to Lord Burlington
…In all, let Nature never be forgot.
But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare;
Let not each beauty ev’ry where be spied,
Where half the skill is decently to hide.
He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,
Surprises, varies and conceals the bounds.
Consult the genius of the place in all
That tells the waters or to rise, or fall,
Or helps th’ ambitious hill the heav’ns to scale
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;
Calls in the country, catches op’ning glades,
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades;
Now breaks, or now directs, th’ intending lines
Paints as you plant, and as you work, designs.
Still follow sense, of ev’ry art the soul,
Parts answ’ring parts shall slide into a whole,
Spontaneous beauties all around advance,
Start ev’n from difficulty, strike from chance;
Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at - perhaps a Stowe…
Alexander Pope
The Hill-side Park
Some banks cropped close, and lawns smooth mown and green,
Where, when a daisy’s guiltless face was seen,
Its pretty head came sacrifice to pride
Of human taste- I saw upon the side
Of a steep hill. Without a branch of wood
Plants, giant-leaved, like boneless bodies stood.
The flowers had colonies, not one was seen
To go astray from its allotted green,
But to the light like mermaids’ faces came
From waves of green, and scarce two greens the same.
And everywhere man’s ingenuity
On fence and bordering: for I could see
The tiny scaffolding to hold the heads
And faces overgrown of flowers in beds
On which their weak-developrd frames must fall,
Had they not such support upright and tall.
There was a fountain, and its waters’ leap
Was under a full-quivered Cupid’s keep.
And from his mother’s lips the spray was blown
Upon adjusted rock, selected stone;
And so was placed that all the waters fell
Into a small ravine in a small dell,
And made a stream, where that wee river raved,
Though gold his rocks and margent amber paved.
This park was a miracle of care,
But sweeter far to me the prospects there:
The far beyond, where lived Romance near the seas
And pools in haze, and in far realms of trees,
I saw where Severn had run wide and free,
Out where the Holms lie flat upon a sea
Whose wrinkles wizard distance smoothed away,
And still sails flecked its face of silver-grey.
W.H. Davies
The Lake in the Park
On an empty morning a small clerk
Who thinks no one will ever love him
Sculls on the lake in the park while bosomy
Trees indifferently droop over him.
On a bank a father and mother goose
Hiss as he passes, pigeons are courting,
Everything mocks; the empty deck-chairs
Are set in pairs, there is no consorting
For him with nature or man, the ducks
Go arrowheading across his bows
Adding insult to absence, his mood
Disallows what the sun endows.
The water arrows are barbed; their barbs,
Corrugated like flint, can start
No Stone-Age echoes in his mind
And yet they too might pierce his heart.
Louise McNeice
A Little Sunlight
Trees in the wood lifeless
Leaves pall the earth
On a large drift the red-sweatered
woman waits. There’s just
a blink of sun, a leaf blows
on her face. The man comes up
quietly, lies down beside her.
Soon she takes off alone,
toting her case. He prays
(I hear him now) all may go well
with her. A plane roars above,
he snuffs his cigarette.
Two dead leaves blow apart
Shinkichi Takahashi
The Public Garden
Burnished, burned-out, still burning as the year
you lead me to our stamping ground.
The city and its cruising cars surround
the Public Garden. All’s alive-
the children crowding home from school at five,
punting a football in the bricky air,
the sailors and their pick-ups under trees
with Latin labels. And the jaded flock
of swanboats paddles to its dock.
The park is drying.
Dead leaves thicken to a ball
inside the basin of a fountain, where
the heads of four stone lions stare
and suck on empty fawcets. Night
deepens. From the arched bridge, we see
the shedding park-bound mallards, how they keep
circling and diving in the lantern light,
searching for something hidden in the muck.
And now the moon, earth’s friend that cared so much
for us, and cared so little, comes again-
always a stranger! As we walk
it lies like chalk
over the waters. Everything’s aground.
Remember summer? Bubbles filled
The fountain, and we splashed. We drowned
in Eden, while Jehovah’s grass-green lyre
was rustling all about us in the leaves
that gurgled by us, turning upside down…
The fountains failing waters flash around
the garden. Nothing catches fire.
Robert Lowell
Bearded Oaks
The oaks, how subtle and marine,
Bearded, and all the layered light
Above them swims; and thus the scene,
Recessed, awaits the positive night.
So, waiting, we in the grass now lie
Beneath the languorous tread of light:
The grasses, kelp-like, satisfy
The nameless motions of the air.
Upon the floor of light, and time,
Unmurmuring, of polyp made,
We rest; we are, as light withdraws,
Twin atolls on a shelf of shade.
Ages to our construction went,
Dim architecture, hour by hour:
And violence, forgot now, lent
The present stillness all its power.
The storm of noon above us rolled,
Of light the fury, furious gold,
The long drag troubling us, the depth:
Dark is unrocking, unrippling, still.
Passion and slaughter, ruth, decay
descend, minutely whispering down,
Silted down swaying streams, to lay
Foundation for our voicelessness.
All our debate is voiceless here,
As all our rage, the rage of stone;
If hope is hopeless, then fearless is fear,
And history is thus undone.
Our feet once wrought the hollow street
With echo when the lamps were dead
All windows, once our headlight glare
Disturbed the doe that, leaping fled.
I do not love you less that now
The caged heart makes iron stroke,
Or less that all that light once gave
The graduate dark should now revoke.
We live in time so little time
And we learn all so painfully,
That we may spare this hour's term
To practice for eternity.
Robert Penn Warren
The Echoing Green
The sun does arise;
And makes happy the skies.
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring;
The skylark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around
To the bells’ cheerful sound,
While our sports shall be seen
On the echoing green.
Old John, with white hair,
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say:
“Such, such were the joys
When we all, girls and boys,
In our youth time were seen
On the Echoing Green”
Till the little ones, weary,
No more can be merry;
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end.
Round the laps of their mothers
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest,
And sport no more seen
On the darkening Green
William Blake
Should Lanterns Shine
Should lanterns shine, the holy face,
Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,
Would wither up, and any boy of love
Look twice before he fell from grace.
The features in their private dark
Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come
And from her lips the faded pigments fall,
The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast
I have been told to reason by the heart,
But heart, like head, leads helplessly;
I have been told to reason by the pulse,
And, when it quickens, alter the action’s pace
Till field and roof lie level and the same
So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman
Whose beard wags in an Egyptian wind.
I have heard many years of telling,
And many years should see some change.
The ball I threw while playing in the park
Has not yet reached the ground
Dylan Thomas
Park Bench
I live on a park bench.
You, Park Avenue.
Hell of a distance
Between us two.
I beg a dime for dinner-
You got a butler and maid.
But I'm wakin' up!
Say, ain't you afraid
That I might, just maybe,
In a year or two,
Move on over
To Park Avenue?
Langston Hughes
