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The Garden
Trinity Hospice, Clapham Common
Ray Stebbing
A flotilla of water lilies,
cream, pale pink, pale yellow,
rides the unruffled round pond,
where a duck and drake cruise
in harmony. Below, shoals in gold,
in black, in black-and-gold livery
saunter through the sun-warmed water.
Jazzy ragged robin burns
bright pink at the water’s edge;
a single clump the mower spared.
In a miniature wildflower meadow
oxeyes wave gently at the sun.
Birds get on with their lives,
squabbling under bushes,
singing quietly in the trees,
foraging with swooping flights.
Bees are busy in the blossom.
Small and golden-haired, a child
runs the paths, romps the lawns.
Her happy shouts echo from walls,
behind which, in cool rooms and quiet,
the nearly-dead get on with dying.
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