The second time she said, “Unfriend that girl!” so,
I hid behind those walls belonging to Masonic Lodge
Landlords, now great celebration not in a girl,
The woman, her hame never, never spoken oh it means
Meaning pearl, not rag doll, but full of great love
For daughter and man, she works behind her fence
Hidden from neighbors, she pulls those weeds, she’s
Gardner of her backyard, her desire to make flowers
Bloom, at age sixty-three she’s limber with the yoga pose
Bent to bring beauty back to the land forgotten when a child
So young, then went off to college, at sixty she retired
Then for three years to rest, into her garden stepped
Knelt in prayer to pull weeds like pulling her husband’s
Back and neck into place, but now it’s hers, to be great
A Gardner, her religion given back because she rested
Now finds living beings in the earth with sky hidden
Behind another all-day cloud, she bends unlike any woman
Ever seen at sixty, she is limber, sits to belong to the earth
Here is a long line of poems, such as beauty given over
To her beauty in a straw hat, long blue sleeves of a shirt
I have given to her so long ago to cut grass with our
Electric mower, no gas fumes in the precious garden, earth
The domain where she will mow, plan goodness in flower
No reckless weeds at last that conquered her for eleven
Years, now full of love she pulls, rejects weeds, though
Living beings, they have no place in beauty she has
Planed, she will complete before her husband leaves
Before he dies adding to soil perhaps in another garden
Before the two must part, he has brought her child
Now her own respect for living beings, butterfly, back
Catipiller, to winged again, husband picture of a butterfly
Complete in their own garden, the complete family set apart.
Garden grown, front yard maintained, back grows again
All is good, all is earth all is earth, all are dirt, clay went,
All is golden brown and
black from years of mulch, years
Proceeding now as she bends, brings her own life back.
Charles Taylor 05-20-2018
Reblogged this on Chuck's Creativity.
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