It is not entirely necessary to be modern.
I was in amongst the seedlings
and she was explaining
how she used techniques from way back
to graft rootstock for hybrids.
There were flowers she hadn’t yet
found a name for in that shed.
Time opened out. For a moment,
its metronome insistence pulsed
into silence. That was a lie.
What endured were the seeds
and the soil marks in pots
like the highest tides had reached
along rhynes that saved them.
We are well drained.
Tired out, we’ll be sitting,
silhouetted by fountained water,
and that will be what we have –
a sense of where we are
spelled out in changeable waters.