Child At The Botanic Gardens Poem by Rosemarie Rowley

To make a phrase numismate, it was
A day of days. My darling ran
Under the boughs of covert loss
Until God made his presence scan,

Like a metre of bright wave, the sin
Of our hearts, and I could count each blotch
Of love as I gazed upward through the din
In my breath hiding from His scotch -

But He had kind words rain on me
And the sun came out and healed the welts and hurt
Till my sadness slipped down the vast tree-
Trunks, and fell like stockings on the dirt

And slaps of time, and grubby days when He
Was absent. My son says He lives in every tree.