The Upland Gardener

In memory of Robert Frost

Daily I see him on my hillside walk,
Pearled by the mist or stencilled by the sun,
Bent on his fork, prising stones
From the grip of ground, barrowing boulders
To smooth his soil and eke his wall.

One time we spoke, his words sifted stiffly
From an old man’s lungs: ‘Clerk of accounts – 
Retired now – only me – Something to do – 
Get the garden in shape – and keep it so, just so –
The while I can – and live.’

A duty borne then, not a pleasure felt?
After a desked and ledgered life, to push
Against the hard of stone and wind and rain;
To hang up old self, a jacket on a peg, 
And drive the boot against the blade?

Or – looked at with a different eye – 
If wife and kin be also hard and loving toil,
Daily to spouse the soil, husband 
And share the moment and the chore, clasping 
Close their every knot and twist and root?

Or not: only to save from time’s tumble 
All the tidy, levelling the furrow
And building a wall against the wild? 
‘While I can – and last’ he said, looking to stretch 
The season while the summer passes.

Lives fade like grass; weed
And fall and fallow will follow after.
This much he surely knows, as I. 
But swallowing that sour, his back he straightens,
And sets his face against the dropping of the sun.