Garden language

Spring’s elaborate gown -
its hem’s seductive flutterings
tease the languorous airs.
A thousand tongues
sing delirious forest music;
creek side burbles a joyous myth
of sinuous rills and nymphs
hiding in the niches of rocks.

The teller sits in cool shadows
cast by the standing stone,
contemplating gnarled hands
from which prophesies are born -
clouded eyes see inward.

The fallen one rests on a dais
surrounded by swarming rats
and roars - why deliver
Sodom and Gomorrah
with its hierarchies of false gods
and sanctioned murder?

Spirit may have had a plan
when it twirled the wheel,
shifting course toward ignition.
But here at the flashpoint -
paused for reckoning;
the garden is burning.

It gets hotter by the second
while concrete flashes
sparks at the sun -
the flowers are scorched,
yet the solution is denied.


© 3/9/2001 Melissa Songer