Ave atque Vale

In Memory of a Lost Garden and All that was Within It

by James Stevens Curl (September 2022)

Broken Urn in an Overgrown Garden, James Stevens Curl

You stood atop the broken stair,
aghast, beside a shattered urn,
with sunshine caught within your hair,
a question forming in your eyes,
upon a point of no return,
a bitter, final, wild surmise
that shimmered in the thinning air.

And so you turned, with final sigh,
through screening wall of yellow flowers,
disturbing petals passing by,
on beeswinged shards of yesteryear,
forgetful of the many hours
we shared, so far, and yet so near,
but never knew the reason why.

Table of Contents

Professor James Stevens Curl is the author of many books, including The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture (with Susan Wilson, 2015, 2016), Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism (2018), and Freemasonry & the Enlightenment: Architecture, Symbols, & Influences (2022).

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