The New Compass: A Critical Review

 

 

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July in the Garden (1996)

i.m. JLW

 

Bradin Cormack

 

 

I have been working this hour in your garden.

Here where the distant promise of fruit

is like a memory of quince and guava,

persimmon, fig and pomegranate,

 

the press of earth against the senses

becomes a story also of summer heat

rising like dust, of August-scented evenings,

the poised slow slant toward the rains.

 

Across the ground I trace the plough's thick lines

to where, as raked stones sometimes will

around a chosen boulder, they gently curve

to skirt the double rose, the hardy lilac;

 

lines that repeat those subtler interventions

and longer presences: the foot placed tactfully,

an upturned hand extended toward the rose,

these lingering prints along the air and soil.

 

 

 

 

 

Cormack, Bradin. “July in the Garden (1996) i.m. JLW. The New Compass: A Critical Review 3 (June 2004) <http://www.thenewcompass.ca/jun2004/cormack.html>