The Garden Sleeper Poem by Sally Evans

He slept for years out of doors
in a garden in London, his daytime
job, some sort of writer.

I didn't know him, but my path
as a young typist must have crossed his:
not only a bright colleger

but an abandoned lover, a philosopher,
a gardener without a garden
and a loafer in cafes rode to work with me.

From my north London window also
came the peck of a typewriter,
above the tired lemon shrub trees

hemmed in by dozing cats.
Trapped among statuary
lay summer-houses all year through.

He slept behind
the throng, the push of humankind,
the escalator pit,

the tall deaf buildings
connecting squares,
mind burrowing

in sentence-stretches, bits of maps
out of the libraries, museums,
much-loved bookshops.

Leaves opened out
in a city of milllions.
We read each other now.

A scrap in a plant-pot in my room
turned into a fuchsia.
Daisy-light shone by the railings.

At last, we all saw our
fought-for survivals
unfold. Each road led to another.

We do not live in London
and I have a garden
I am too old to sleep in.

1990