My Garden Is a Graveyard

My Garden is a Graveyard


Last Summer I drove to Eden,
Bought boxes to grow my green.
Filled containers with hope,
So one day I may thrust my hands

         in rich fertile blackness.

Last Summer my son built boxes
Combined them in loving rows
Carried burdens of soil to mix and turn

         Creating the rich fertile blackness.

Last summer's bounteous hope:

Vain dreams of fruits and herbs to fill my family.

Unfulfilled Joy in reaping together

            from the rich fertile blackness.

 Hope died 'mid blooms of blazing cosmos.
Prometheus' gift, our curse.

White hot flames devoured our hopes

and whiteness blanketed my child.

My black empty richness abandoned

to the cries of my boy's despair. 

No herbs bloomed last summer

For billowing fire blasted there

          in the rich fertile blackness.

I soothed my boy's blooming sores
in billowing white Silvadene,
white bandages of arms and legs.
Lathered foaming white on his hopes
and assuaged his pain
while the white winds stole 

                my rich fertile blackness

midair.


Now whiteness falls like ashes
concealing the billowing blaze of blooms
Whiteness silences the mocking rose and encases
                my rich fertile blackness
Like a tomb.

Now rows of unfulfilled desire
stretch like graves through my garden.

My pain entombed alone,

under snowy masses. Buried deep

             in my rich fertile blackness.