Hall Place gardens

Here where I walk
           remembering
knowing that words
           are not love
but that words may sustain
           the memory of love
or the presence of love
           as the custodians
of our thoughts
           and of our feelings

and so here in these gardens
           with you I walk remembering
and at the same time
           I lay down fresh memories :
here are the marigolds
           of my childhood
and the weeping willows
           the oaks and the sycamores
the ducks and the geese
           and the swans
all descendants
           of those days and the lawns
where I once picnicked
           under the shade of an elm

John Lyons