In A Rose Garden In A Forest

    Everywhere roses, in bud, in bloom, fading.
    Pale, brilliant, mellow ladies of cool elegance,
    or blowzily tumbling from their silk frocks.
    Swaying, nodding, trembling,
    as breeze slips through their green petticoats.

    Contentedly buzzing , bees blundering
    over golden-hearted flowers,
    drawn by a lust for gold and scent known
    long since fabled ancient Babylon,
    a lingering honeyed, deep, sweet breath.

    The bees and I roaming perfumed paths
    to a secret place, circled around
    with white blooms among green leaves and scarlet haws,
    hear a song the winds sing through tallest trees
    sighing an endless rush, like waves on a summer sands.

    Happiness, time for idleness, for contemplation, for me,
    hearing hidden, from the trees, among the roses,
    birdsong - a silvery soprano descant, over the bees alto 
    humming.
    Enchantment in the sights, sounds and scents
    comes to me, in a rose garden, in a forest.

                           Naomi Mitchell MacColl