A Strange New Cottage

POEM A Strange New Cottage by Allen Ginsberg

Illustration by my uncle of the cottage he built in the mountains in Taiwan.

A Strange New Cottage

    All afternoon cutting bramble blackberries off a tottering brown 
fence
    under a low branch with its rotten old apricots miscellaneous under 
the leaves,
    fixing the drip in the intricate gut machinery of a new toilet;
    found a good coffeepot in the vines by the porch, rolled a big tire out
of the scarlet bushes, hid my marijuana;
    wet the flowers, playing the sunlit water each to each, returning for
godly extra drops for the string beans and daisies;
    three times walked round the grass and sighed absently;
    my reward, when the garden fed me its plums from the form of a small tree in the corner,
an angel thoughtful of my stomach, and my dry and lovelorn tongue. 

Living a block and 50 summers away from the setting of this poem, I wonder what draws me to this place - scenes of Berkeley in the summer, tucked away behind a mess of plum branches and leaves back lit by the sun. Music echos with the sound of construction and brown carpet silent under my feet. With a precious number of summers ahead, I wonder where I'm headed and what kind of fruit I'll have to eat.