Ganging up on the gardener
We call on our friends the bees to sting him.
Again, again!
On the ripe blue vein on his hand when he bends over to snip.
At his neck as he swipes and jerks.
Oh, the joy in his agony and twisted dance.
“Ouch!” is a funny word.
His cursing upsets his wife. She loses sympathy, calls him a child and slams the door.
Spiders – get him! Touch his face! Bite hard!
Breathe in his groaning prayers!
Amen, brother and sister bees.
We flowers don’t belong in vases beside photographs of dead people.
Kind as we appear, we have our ways.
The business of gardening
The first notion you have to give up is that everything has a right to live.
It’s not practical in the garden.
Or if you believe it has a right to live, you have to know not all, not even most, will make it.
This will be at your own hand.
If you are not good with this, then being a gardener will be harder on you.
It’s mostly a business of death, funny enough.
MFA, two books of fiction published, poems and short stories seen here and there, too.