Seeking garden-depth,
he worked from dawn to
soilful night on two knees
torn with age and troubling
thoughts of roots misplaced,
forgotten-lost in the sly coin
unfound within time’s hands
now spent with bile and fury
neither to blossom nor feed
his soul—there, he said it—
and he raised the darkened
earth in handfuls above his
head, centered his passion
within his mind. Grant me
a vision, he prayed—there,
he did it—a hunger at one
with time as worms flexed
between his fingers fought
with all their might to hide
in dirt once more their lives,
his bold head following them
into the dark, joyed with flights
from all rabid for death’s release
and ate of earth, swallowed sins
untasted, digested with delight
in the glowing dark of night’s
one chant of maturation—
was planted at last.
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