Sometimes
On
rain-sodden days, my lover
finds
me transfixed
at
the window, arms crossed on the sill,
chin
cupped. He understands
it’s
about the garden,
but
he knows nothing of seedlings
and
I don’t try to explain
how
the neighbouring lupines—bleeding crimsons
into
one another—prove
a
higher power exists. Volunteer pansies—
they
do this, too. A kind of tie-dyed
coalescence,
each slightly different
and
ever beyond mortal artistry.
To
be civilized, truly, is to enter one’s garden
of
a morning and take time
to
cut and arrange flowers
for
the dining room, the unremarkable sill
above
the sink, the piano-top.
Perhaps
to sit a while on a bench or step—
still damp with dew—
and
be present
with
the heralding birds.
—Do I make too much of
this?
Gardens
don’t prevent wars
or
heal shattered relationships, but sometimes
on
a rain-sodden morning
this
modest patch of inner-city gumbo—
immune
to the hovering police helicopter,
the
perpetual siren-screams—
fills
the heart of a watching woman
like
a glass vase
left on the patio
table
through
the hours of a nine-day rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment