Hanging
Like a cluster of wrathful grapes
Fermenting
Into the blackness of the night
Soaking
In its skeleton
It marinates into the moonlight

Aside

Fallen
A granite birdbath
Lies
Cracked with time
A broken shrine
For visiting Cardinals
A ritual
Once filled
With a baptismal of water
A cantata
Once used for celebratory absolution
Now
Gone
With the suns dance of fire

In front

A graceful congregation of White Fox
Lilt
Tilt and wilt
Under the dying chorus of the Cardinals eulogy

Ascending

A hill
Once green
Now parched
A choir of eloquent red and white delphiniums
Bow their etiolated petals with emollient celebration
But tonight
The granite font was filled with an ephemera of emptiness

At the far end
Of the garden
A Norway Maple
Supports a stilted campanile
Shingled
With shifting shadows

It scaffolds the darkness under a pollarded bower of leaves
Framed
Into the moonlight
It becomes a chameleon of time
Gnarled and twisted
Its Hugh trunk braces its knotted bough
Onto the cedar shakes of a child's tree house
Like a Barosaurus
Its felicitous neck rests under a moonlit canopy of epidermal leaves
Waiting
For the young children
To peel off the darkness
With their peal of laughter

To the east

Of the cedar tree house
A commemorative Red Oak stands
Tall and gangly
It capes
At playful Pansies
Who often bask in the mid-day sun

In the corner

Shrinking
Violets
Wilt and wait
For the cool night to appear
While wanton wallflowers wait
To be picked
And placed
Into a Waterford crystal vase of cold crystalline water

Center

To the right
Of the vegetable garden
Two
Warring apple trees
Stand
Alone
Like two old curmudgeons
Guarding
A small patch of abandoned vegetables
Once inhabited by an invasive family of downy grey rabbits
Now
That the enemy has gone
They stand

Alone

In silence
Decorated
With a medallion of silver-bronze knots
The two wily veterans bow
Their amputated limbs over a diminishing legion of fallen poppies
Once a glorious badge of red courage
Now
A wilting carnage of carmine
Petals

Falling

Onto a swath of decaying Daffodils
Were warm whispering winds
Have gathered their leafage into a black bed of decaying death
Bedded with soil
Cradled in sleep
Winds
Chime
In the silence of the night
Where Canterbury bells lament
Into the peelings of the moon
Where small gatherings of Forget-Me-Nots
Huddle together
In a purple sea of lavender
Were Boltonias shed their tears of dew

Moving

Huddled
In a slow steady breeze
Dusty Millers
Salute the stars
In a wake of silver
Black-eyed Susan’s wave
As they parade down the leaden pathway
Under
A stellar of ticket-taped stars
They march into the waxen moonlight
Where their bold shadows fade into a silken mist of silver
Dust

The south

East of the yellow-bricked house
A kindergarten of Butterfly Begonias
Gather
Together
In a pod of posies
Watching
A Circus Rose perform
In her pinafore of petals
Sequined
Under a silken banner of spangled stars
Pirouetting
Under a starlit tent of a sleepy sunset