Images At The Chestnut Tree

I went to the chestnut tree
stripped bare by winter, where my mother
was gardening with potted plants.

While watering them
there were many shadows
that the swinging branches made
which formed images
of ghostly spellbound things
in my imagining creeping near

and in this autumn of my years
the power of destiny
was playing on my greatest fears
as if making it clear
that my last summer was spent.