I was out enjoying my garden and remembered this poem about Bill and Ann Powell.

                       Old Bill's Garden


They are digging up Old Bill's garden--
          tossing the stakes naked of pea vines,
                   tramping the furrows bereft of their berries.
They are paving over the pebbly path
          that measured the shortening of his steps.
They are trenching through the derelict rows
          laying pipe where Ann's peonies once struggled,
                   where her roses fed the deer.

The spoil rises.
It piles against the sill
          where his gloves rested.
It grows in a tangle of brush and root,
          the hacked remains of the old apple and plum.
It grows with planks of fence.
It grows with shards of the siding
Bill hammered in place one hot summer
          and painted Ann's favorite color.
It rises like a pyre.

A big mouthed backhoe clears the spot
Where the two green lawn chairs
          sat side by side
                    for all those years.
Two chairs,
Even when Ann was gone
          and only Bill was left 
                    to watch the traffic and the sunflowers.
And then just two empty chairs--
          watching the road like a poem.

See all the grey earth scraped clean of them,
Blank and bare
          and waiting for the next story.