Berkeley Rose Garden

Nathan Spooner

A few days after winter break,
we walk across campus past shops
and houses on north side up
the long hill along Ceder to
the Rose Garden.

At the garden, examine
winter dormant plants.
She finds a place beneath
a bridge-like structure as
we sit along wisps of fragile
misty strands moving ghostlike
among the bare plants and shrubs
insulating us from the entire world.
Yes, thousands of years pass in this
secret place as two persons contemplate
ethereal transient space-time garden.
Her magical smile leaves this one
unable to respond but to gaze into
green mist shroud and feel the
eternal presence that only
lovers may exchange.