Maurine Smith

THE UNPEOPLED conventional rose garden

Is where I shall take my heart

With this new pain.

Clipped hedge and winter-covered beds

Shall ease its hurt.

When it has grown quiet,

I shall mount the steps, slowly,

And put three sorrows in the terra-cotta urn

On that low gate-pillar,

And leave them there, to sleep,

Beneath the brooding stillness of a twisted pine.