birthday poem

i reside at table mountain
i heard the wind all day
the smell of the rose so false, the thorns so true
the poets tell
and as we walked the grass was faintly stirred
she knows a cheap release
somewhere i read a strange, old, rusty tale
they in the darkness gather and ask
sweet with fern and rose
in his guarded tent
i walk down the garden paths
a thin gray shadow on the edge of thought
she heard the children playing in the sun