The Winter Garden

This is the winter garden,
this my winter life;
with branches a scribble of brown or grey
against a slaty sky.
Here no flower breaks the peace of sleeping plants,
No bloom of colour breaks my drowsing life.
Ice hard the soil; ice hard my heart.
Though somewhere deep below
there may be warmth and life,
within this winter garden
nothing stirs and spring perhaps
is just a shining fable writ for fools.