There is a garden on my wall
Flowers, an old cottage
In barely gilded frame
It is misplaced there
From the home I knew
No longer found
Among the trees and grass
And blooms of home
But treasure lies
Within the tarnished frame
No wall confines
The flowers blooming there
Upon my wall.
This short poem was written on June 20, 1996 during some illness that temporarily confined me inside my home. It has been edited several times since then, eliminating some words and changing others. Some years later, I wrote a short piece about the place and time that was the source of its inspiration. I would like to share the first paragraph of that memoir:
The faded picture in its worn frame on my bedroom wall, filled me with an awareness of my past and its affect on my present. It was just an old calendar print, cut and placed under glass in a recycled frame many years ago. It depicted a thatched roofed cottage with a lovely flower garden in front, that hung on the wall above my grandfather’s chair for as long as I remember. I removed it from the vacant, deteriorating farmhouse before they burned it down.
Unfortunately, in an attempt to remove the print from the frame it fell into pieces of aged paper. By chance or perhaps divine providence I found a similar print lovelier than the first in a local antique shop. This now hangs on my wall, a much cherished remembrance. Written in script at the bottom are the words: Home Sweet Home.
DJ Pasternak, Author 