Garden Colours, by Victoria Crawford

Garden Scene, by Alice Best (USA, 1870-1926).

Garden Colours

New leaves tremble with promise
in the egg shell crystal of air,
silken breeze pearled
with damp umber scents 
of lately turned earth in
honeyed early summer.

My  shabby rocking chair,
Worn cushions the pale blush
of a child’s ballet slippers,
waits with rose compassion
to cradle me oyster-like.
Iced tea melts into amber 
as I join my garden
in opalescent early evening.

Tuxedo cat stalks 
an onyx burnished beetle,
her chest snow in the dusk.
The dog, face grizzled, 
sprawls contented,
plume tail curled safe
from  metronome rockers .

I settle, now home placed,
violet and pumpkin streaks
measuring sunset’s margin. 
Close by, the garden transmutes
with day’s  advance 
into colours I will not name.

Victoria Crawford

This poem first appeared in Peacock Journal.

Victoria Crawford is a writer and poet now retired in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  For many years she was a resident in California’s Monterey Bay.  An active gardener, she has always enjoyed the evening peace of enjoying her plants and flowers.  When a friend recently sent her picture of a classic California garden, she recalled her old home and her joy in it.  The picture is a California landscape by artist Alice Best.