garden has a history like the
great white-capped wall built across the horizon
seen from the Snowy Mountains Highway before Nimmitabel
in early spring
which comes up with the onions
planted in memory
one millennium they will be dug in,
back into the magma …

the hot garden under the frame
watching the worms escape
a lazy child, just watching
stretching, fetching things begrudgingly
and bored
but disinclined to work, or play
just watching, dreaming
being a pod of dolphins diving across the waves like waves

while the garden grows  and I am old
snow falling deeper every day
life rushes like a tabla
words curl like worms in the sun
my frame of plastic broken by the cats
and my one cactus left run wild

and this …

Robert Verdon

Robert Verdon is a Canberra-based writer of poetry and prose. He came second in the 2012 WB Yeats Poetry Prize.

More by Robert Verdon ›

Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places.

If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate.


Related articles & Essays