Garden Flowers (Las Flores Del Jardin) Poem by Margie Cronin

for Peter Boyle

In Spain, the Bougainvillea entered
by smell and sight and filled his body
with attention and a sickness for home;
carried him to a Sydney garden
where in the night behind his eyes
a yellow flower glowed.
Just to the left of it had been
the cover of an apricot tree -
cut by his wife to open the yard
to the invisible face of the sky.
While along the fence and in the cracks
where the concrete denied its strength,
was the everywhere pink
of a beautiful weed
that left him cradled and careless
with names. And he a poet!
What are they, the wild bright yellows?
The reds and the blues and the purples
jostling for precision and ancestry.
His is in this latest book -
and what a remarkable life!
Working on nothing right now
but finished a few short things
a few weeks back - waiting
for something to germinate...