beside me in this garden <br />are huge and daisy-like <br />(why not? are not <br />oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?), <br />shrubby and thick-stalked, <br />the leaves pointing up <br />the stems from which <br />the flowers burst in <br />sunbursts. I love <br />this garden in all its moods, <br />even under its winter coat <br />of salt hay, or now, <br />in October, more than <br />half gone over: here <br />a rose, there a clump <br />of aconite. This morning <br />one of the dogs killed <br />a barn owl. Bob saw <br />it happen, tried to <br />intervene. The airedale <br />snapped its neck and left <br />it lying. Now the bird <br />lies buried by an apple <br />tree. Last evening <br />from the table we saw <br />the owl, huge in the dusk, <br />circling the field <br />on owl-silent wings. <br />The first one ever seen <br />here: now it's gone, <br />a dream you just remember. <br /> <br />The dogs are barking. In <br />the studio music plays <br />and Bob and Darragh paint. <br />I sit scribbling in a little <br />notebook at a garden table, <br />too hot in a heavy shirt <br />in the mid-October sun <br />into which the Korean mums <br />all face. There is a <br />dull book with me, <br />an apple core, cigarettes, <br />an ashtray. Behind me <br />the rue I gave Bob <br />flourishes. Light on leaves, <br />so much to see, and <br />all I really see is that <br />owl, its bulk troubling <br />the twilight. I'll <br />soon forget it: what <br />is there I have not forgot? <br />Or one day will forget: <br />this garden, the breeze <br />in stillness, even <br />the words, Korean mums. <br /> <br /> <br />Anonymous submission.<br /><br />James Marcus Schuyler<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/korean-mums/
