Quietly at Great Dixter

 We arrived early

 and although we could distantly hear 

Fergus Garrett the head gardener

mowing the meadow grass

and glimpsed one young man loping away

with garden twine

hanging from both back pockets,

it was a rare chance 

for the flowers

to make the loudest statements

in Christopher Lloyd's exuberant September garden.

Where the usual throng was that day

we never found out.