I rambled through your garden once.

It was long ago; so be it.

You minded me not

As gardener;

My deft hand seemed

To make your roses

Climb with sweet

Impunity on the trellises,

And you never scratched

Yourself on any thorn.

But gardens grow old;

Soil turns to dust,

And all things die to be renewed.

I might have hated

Banishment to the grey lands,

But looking back

I am of accord with the fact that I,

Who nurtured you, was not the one

Meant to be the tiller of your heart.

I sometimes tread the winding walks

Where your roses bloom. Spying their

Brilliant shades, I pick out the beautiful,

Then wonder which flower there is mine.

But such musings are for the poets

The ones whose hearts will

Hack and hoe at the same earth

For eons, begging seeds to grow.  

In the bittersweet end

I am left with the cuttings of my

Own wisdom to get by on the rainy days:

The best of those who till the soil know

There is more earth out there where

Love and roses grow.

06/26/2003

Posted on 06/26/2003
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch