Each spring... a gardening instinct, sure as the sap rising in the trees, stirs within us. We look about and decide to tame another little bit of ground.
~ Lewis Gantt
I PLANNED TO HAVE A BORDER OF LAVENDER
I planned to have a border of lavender
but planted the bank too of lavender
and now my whole crazy garden
is grown in lavender
it smells so sharp heady and musky
of lavender, and the hue of only
lavender is all my garden up
into the gray rocks.
When forth I go from here the heedless lust
I squander—and in vain for I am stupid
and miss the moment—it has blest me silly
when forth I go
and when, sitting as gray as these gray rocks
among the lavender, I breathe the lavender's
tireless squandering, I liken it
to my silly lusting,
I liken my silly indefatigable
lusting to the lavender which has grown over
all my garden, banks and borders, up
into the gray rocks
— Paul Goodman
from Collected Poems
Poetry Garden
