Just Before the Fall

Let us divide our labors, thou where choice
Leads thee or where most needs, whether to wind
The woodbine round this arbor, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb, while I
In yonder spring of roses intermixed
With myrtle, find what to redress till noon
Milton, John. Paradise Lost, Book 9 (214-219), 1674

Inside, the dust is patient. Clothes will wait
for washing, dinner undeclared. Outside,
the restless garden’s where her joy abides.
She reaches for perfection fogged in fate
as leaves are borne on late September light,
weaving through the surging lusty growth
of roses reaching. The garden does not know
that autumn tempts the air with longer nights.
Layerd in light, a morning mist now hides
the truth of what is right and wrong, the air
so sweet a taste that she is unaware
that we approach the eve of our demise.

Severed from me, I do not hear her call
from a spring of roses, just before the fall.

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Email: Tom Loper