Rereading the Night Gardener

What are you looking for, exactly,
Out on someone’s deck that you rent?
There’s late spring sun flooding their garden,

And their giant ornamental plum
Is all in bloom and dropping catkins,
And you can hear the birds and the stream

Building toward inevitable
Freshet as the snow melts down at last,
But you’re thinking about a land war

Over in Europe—Europe, again!
And what a terrible thing it is
To covet somebody else’s land,

To murder and destroy to claim land,
As you sit on someone else’s land,
Ever-transient, short-term renter.

What are you thinking for, exactly,
Having put your books away for now,
Since none of them were compelling you?

Did any of this ever happen?
Were you ever actually reading
On a deck in beautiful sunlight?

It’s midnight. You weren’t dreaming. You weren’t
Ever here, feeling any of this,
Until now. Now you are. What’s your war?