In the Garden Shed
The morning sunlight has come angling in
where the door hangs open on one rusted hinge.
I suppose it worked free in last night’s wind.
In here, all scattered, are those discarded things
that, careless, we’ve left to grow dirty and dim.
To tell the truth, we’d forgotten them.
And there at the back, the roof’s broken through,
but until this morning nobody knew
how this has let sunlight come streaming in
to nurture a clever green-weedy vine
that has found a safe wall inside to climb –
the gardener’s hoe no longer a threat.
I’ll prop the door closed. Some secrets, I find,
are much better off when they have been kept.
by Doris Watts
Editor’s Note: The volta at the end of this sonnet shifts the focus of the narrative from observation to philosophy. Slant rhyme and irregular meter loosen this poem from strict to casual, in keeping with the subject matter.
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