Memories
Late,
In a dark night’s blue
Spotting the bright crescent moon,
Remembering the passions of love
And
What happiness was,
Time collapsed.
So many long years ago,
In the beginning,
He opened the gate
With its barren gray wood’s
Uninviting severity
To find its brother parity beyond the barrier
In a large spread of dead earth,
Whose only life was tenacious crabgrass,
Red clay
And
A dearth of beauty.
The way he met the ugliness of life
Was to create,
To garden
To attend the seasons
And
In his imaginative reasons,
There grew lush creations
Seeming magical in splendid
Color, texture, fragrance,
Black earth for sand
Water for drought
And
The dance of Gaia in his joy
At rejecting sterility and neglect.
I learned to expect as new
Every day
An enchanted nectar paradise
Celebrating hummingbirds, butterflies, bees
And
Varieties of these soldier-angels of nature.
Finally, at the end
After invasive traumatic care
He returned home,
Confused, frightened and wary of place.
“You are home my love,” I said.
He stood in front of his bedroom window
Overlooking his garden
And
Whispered:
“Wow.”
His last words.
Days later he was dead,
His ashes buried in the rose garden.
Passing this spot every day alone in grief
At dawn
I pause on the way to duty
thinking, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
While
Stirring in the heart,
At the beginning of a new spring
A permanent sadness recalls
A distant memory of letting go:
While a dove flies into the storm,
‘Lost in Time,
Like all those tears in rain.’
i love this poem. may we all be so blessed to end with Wow.
well, I’m crying now. how well you capture the transformation of your garden and Trace’s beautiful spirit; your loneliness and longing. Well done, my friend.