Garten

I took the first step into the lane. And somewhere, in the middle of the path, I slipped out of the present into a garden that grows between memory and imagination. Your trace lay in the light. Like sunspots between the branches, as if someone had briefly opened something and closed it again. No wind. And yet the leaves did not move enough to call it a "storm." Only enough to know: you were here. I went on, without knowing what I was looking for. At the edge of the pond I stopped. The water was still, too still, as if it were holding something back. Nothing reflected properly. Everything was there, but not graspable. A few steps later: the pergola. Its columns stood like an order that is not mine. Straight, calm, uninvolved. I stepped closer. Before a column I stopped. Above me a bird detached itself from the edge of the roof, a brief beat, a cut. And suddenly the space between us had a measure: a column. And behind it a wall.