Gardens

At Mount Wilson
Scarcely any wind to shake the blooms.
Everywhere, the crimson and tangerine
and mauve of azalea or rhododendron.
The sequoia cannot be seen whole—
an epic beside their brief resonance,
stored with a century of sun and shadow.
In the late afternoon, these are one;
you stroll beneath wisteria to a perfect
white gazebo. But it is the garden
which looks in at you, calls you out again
to almost touch crinkled bubbles
of pink, rim the first decay on cream,
smell those barely-orange flowers,
unnameable, in mountain air.