The Gardener

A dormant land, the gardener surveyed,
Lindens and lilacs planted in his mind.
He sensed the promise, then made one in kind,
And yearned to see Arcadia arrayed.
A bloom within a kiss his touch unfurled,
The fractured hazy light of nymphic groves,
The peaking waves of concupiscent coves,
A paradise seeded within a world.
The winter's fall his idyll soon unseamed,
His cherished blossoms to the frost succumbed,
He retreated, his rosy fingers numbed,
But of the garden's spring ardour, he dreamed.
And when the snowdrops woke, they blushed and saw
Their lover’s thumbs, to tendrils tend once more.