Denise Levertov




The Garden Wall

Bricks of the wall, 
so much older than the house—
taken I think from a farm pulled down 
              when the street was built—
narrow bricks of another century. 

Modestly, though laid with panels and parapets, 
a wall behind the flowers—
roses and hollyhocks, the silver 
pods of lupine, sweet-tasting 
phlox, gray 
lavender-
              unnoticed— 
but I discovered 
the colors in the wall that woke 
when spray from the hose 
played on its pocks and warts— 

a hazy red, a 
grain gold, a mauve 
of small shadows, sprung 
from the quiet dry brown—

                              archetype 
of the world always a step 
beyond the world, that can't 
be looked for, only 
as the eye wanders, 
found.