What Hope Lies In This Earthly Garden
This patch of dirt, this womb of earth, organic
black and aromatic with compost and
coffee grounds, receives my
spade, but soon my hands
are digging there, putting roots
in place as seedlings, kelly green and
delicate as sparrow wings, fill the garden bed.
Relentless sun
draws sweat like rivulets
on walls in a leaky house, salting
my eyes and a skyward supplication:
Dear God dismiss both drought and deluge;
create instead a harvest bursting like the heirloom,
deep red and overdue for picking.
On the morrow, with work behind me for a day, I drive
to town and join my neighbors in communal song: we praise
the One who watches over home and field and commands
his son to rise along with daily bread.
Heading home through glacial ghosts, on asphalt
softened by an early summer, and though the
wide horizon invites redemption, I’ll not
realize what I’ve done: prayer engaging
as an echo
(the cry of hope in cloistered air...)
prostration pleasing to Apollo -
and all the patriarchal gods -
praises poured upon an
ancient father, Abba,
unable to embrace a
child or climate
refugee.
I’ll not remember my mother, how she shaped
bone and sinew from the black dust of
burned out stars, breathing, from
florae exhalations, oxygen into
lungs, benefiting when I
grow wise enough to consider
the lily, to celebrate her gift, now
trampled beneath the gilded idol, how she
suckled me with milk as rich as the soil in her veins.
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a
Premium Membership.
