The Gardener

He remembers the dead planted in his head, he counts roots and tendrils, some go missing, and he wonders where? He used to garden when he had a garden, so he looks for the once planted, sees his friends and lovers and all the others as sunflowers and snapdragons, also wilderness blooms. Memory has its own way to nourish, it can also dead-head, even uproot, but there are many blooms in his head. He wonders that without this inner garden he might be just an empty garden pot. So he tends to them, even the ones that have turned into brier and thorns, after all he has kept them for a long time, maybe they wake him in the night for a reason still.