Oldway Gardens

by Edward Keyes

The dog sniffs round the roots of the willow.
Beyond the low wall a goat looks up, stares glassily,
resumes munching. Each intent on its own occasions,
  cocooned in the present.

I am sidetracked by allusions, cannot linger
in the immediate world of dog and goat. Ophelia's death,
tune of tit-willow, Hunt's scapegoat, Eliot's goat
  coughing in a field.

Allusion slides into memory. A Hull childhood park
where I fed the ducks in the pool, stared at parrots
in the bird house, pitied the musty old raven
  in its separate cage.

Another Hull Park in my twenties, where on autumn evenings
I tried to tease the twilight sky into verse
Jewelled verse, not like this, halting, pedestrian,
  at the other end of life.