Garden.

The dust doesn't stop attacking your senses.
Dry, irritating to the skin and it is metallic on your tongue.
The soil  has become a fine powder and sterile
Set down the hoe and reach for a clump of dirt.
Touch sets it off and it explodes in to more fine powder.
Eyes burn,
But there are no more tears left.
Look to the open field and wonder if anything will grow again.

Eyes closed, I imagine green.
I hear her giggle.
I hear our secret language as we play in the green.
It's a Garden Green in my mind, that Garden.
It's a richness in the soil.
It's activity in the moisture, 
You can hear the growing.
You can smell the fertility.
It seemed that anything we planted would grow.
We planted ABC's and she read.
We planted music and she sang.
We planted love and she loved.
Tending to her then was easy.

But you can't tend garden forever.
Eventually, it must learn how to sustain itself.
The weeds come in quickly.
Purpose is pushed aside quickly.
Good fruit is forgotten in favor of 
Pretty things,
Smelly things, 
Woozy things,
Potent things.
Bad fruit becomes the only crop that grows.

Many gardeners come in to help:
Hoeing,
Weeding,
Coaxing,
Watering.
Frustration.  The weeds are fierce and deep rooted.
The garden has been re-purposed.
The gardeners mill about, keeping busy
Vacillating between denial, surrender and shear efforts of will.

Before long, even bad fruit won't grow.
The soil begins to waste away.
You are the last gardener.
You remain, because when you close your eyes,
You can still hear and feel and smell 
That garden.  
Is it delusion, denial or hope?

Only one Gardener now that can do anything.
Will she call for him?
Will it be too late when she does?
He is ready, waiting, patient.
He is a tender gardener.
He has good seed.
But he will not allow anything to grow,
That does not belong in this garden.  
I wait for him.
I wait for her.
I close my eyes again to see that Eden Green.
I feel his hand move mine.
I feel his heart move mine.
I feel his hope move mine.
This garden will grow again.
It is his garden.
It always has been.


Hosea 2: “In that day I will respond,”
    declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
    and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
    the new wine and the olive oil,
    and they will respond to Jezreel.[h]
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
    I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.[i]’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,[j]’ ‘You are my people’;
    and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”