Garden Island is a faded Battleship Potemkin

Dowdy skies in

post-war times, drained of inspiration,

Doug paints trees to cover him,

recover him,

battle hymn,

their tangled limbs, mangled limbs

amassing darker foliage,

slim shade to a lost sun,

grassy, half-hidden memories

of Mons, Lone Pine and Passchendaele,

that foreground path

empty tomorrow,

his harbour home remains

despondent mystery.

- after Garden Island, 1924, Douglas Roberts Dundas

© Garry McDougall