Outside My Castle Poem by Sally Evans

Outside my castle I have flower beds.
Not trees or lakes.

Trees don't last long enough for me
and lakes remind too much of shipping,
or death by water.

My gardener is a good man,
he tends his flowerbeds quietly
a tapestry of begonias
forget-me-nots and tulips over green -
and my wife, Constance, likes him.

Anyone who fills a place
with flair, efficiency and grace
does all a helpless human can -
we wish too much of our lifespan.

[Hutton Castle]
[William Burrell]
from sequence on William Burrell