After the Deaths at Kent State
David Helwig
Today I see
gardeners in a formal garden
in a far country, here in England
surrounded by spring, by gentleness
and the smell of the green growth.
(A girl so thin I can see each muscle
move as she moves, walks
through the garden, writing in a book.)
In a shop, a man diseased appears to dance
behind me, all around the shop. I hold the hand
of a child that is not my own and think
of the far away dead, for them
there are no garden.
Helwig, David. “After the Deaths at Kent State.” Storm Warning: The New Canadian Poets. Ed. Al Purdy. Toronto: McClelland, 1971. 73.
Copyright Estate of David Helwig. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of David Helwig.