When the Chrysanthemums Are in Bloom

We are in between, as always,
But this in-between forms a crest.

The borrowed garden has cycled
Without its absent owners, left

Alone, for the summer renters’ delight,
Who had no idea which was which

When they arrived. When they arrived,
Only the plum and some tulips

Were out in force, and to their eyes
All the rest was a mass of spring green

After winter in the desert.
Then the slowest fireworks commenced,

And it transpired that the garden
Had been arranged for a sequence

That brought each patch of new colors
Out in another corner just

As the last drooped, continuous
Waves sweeping along in an arc

And returning, some obvious—
The weeks of lilacs, of poppies,

Of irises, roses, daisies—
Some inscrutable—what were those

Savage bluish-purple carpets?
For the renters, their ignorance

Was bliss, the garden a slow show
They’d never had to cultivate,

Never planned, never had to weed,
Never knew to anticipate,

Elaborate, floromantic,
Flower clock they could no more read

Than a digital child can read
A dial or tell time by the bells.

Still, they knew what it meant for them,
Garden belonging to someone

They weren’t, unintended for them,
Past they weren’t, future they wouldn’t.