The Midnight Garden

My poem for today takes for its inspiration "Tom's Midnight Garden" by Philippa Pearce, and for no other reason that I was pondering late last night, around 12, what to write, and noticed the moon outside the clouds, shining down on the houses. I thought of when I recalled myself that those houses were open fields, and that of course made me think of the book.

The Midnight Garden

Time flows like many grains of sand
I walk the green and pleasant land
And contemplate the shore and sea
These are my core, the heart of me
And when I think back upon my time
I hear the Grandfather clock’s chime
The sound of thirteen strokes one night
And the opening door into moonlight
The garden, Victorian splendour, there
I walk out slowly, hesitate in fear
And see the orchard’s blossom white
I marvel at this strange world’s sight
Another time, another place, I came
And nothing is ever quite the same
The housing estate all gone away
As dew evaporates at dawn of day
And far to the river, meadows green
Shadows of houses not built, unseen
This is the world before, my yesterday
And I long to walk the path that way
Down to the river bank, the willow tree
But time is pressing, time to go back
To world that wonders now does lack
And so back inside that open door
In memory alive, of all I saw
Such the joys of childhood long ago
But time’s sediment in the river flow
Lays down the present on the past
Nothing is the same, at the last
The door closes, the thunder growls
Against window pane, a gale howls
And the clock strikes, this time one
And so to dreams, my tale is done