I’ve known this cottage path for over half my life,

walked on its concrete slabs at every time of year:
when snowdrops quietly pierce the January air
or when, in speckling sunlight, honesty runs rife;
when lilies doused with dew reach out to stroke my skin,
while from the rosebed Queen of Denmark floats her scent;
when bronze chrysanthemums begin the year’s lament,
their burnished blaze reflected on the holly’s sheen.

But on this frosty evening path, pecked-out windfalls
and sludge from rotting cherry leaves begin to harden.
Ivy twists and tightens dark arms round this garden.
Ghosts of summer flicker in the rampant brambles.
At this path’s end, Rosa Kiftsgate has succumbed
to age and death; its massive thorns no longer gore.
I reach the house and turn the handle on the door.
But it’s stuck hard. And so I knock. And no-one comes.