Abundant as the garden is right now,
some pruning will be necessary soon.
I love the look but thought I’d need a plow
to get from gate to door this afternoon.
I don’t want a machete – that’s not how
to remedy this glut of nature’s boon.
I’ll grab my gloves and shears and hat, and ask
my garden guy to help me with this task.
I’ve tidy-filed papers here for years,
and recently I started to dispose.
A box of paid-off mortgages and tiers
of tax returns were items I first chose
to toss, stiff data that I don’t suppose
I’ll ever need again. Two boxes full,
before confronting signs I’ve been verbose,
and now the process slows with recall’s pull.
Confronted with the choice when I was young,
to garner disapproval speaking out,
or listen to my mother, hold my tongue,
collecting compliments I have no doubt,
I opted to express myself, with shout
if needful but impolitic. A shove
of words I chose instead of flirty pout.
I needed it to be myself you love.
As much as I feel 23 inside,
or 17, or 32, like you,
I live in fact, and I don’t want to hide
from changes that with every year accrue.
So I will face my face, accept I’ve lost
much elasticity and useful fat.
My bones are holey, and my nights are tossed;
I’m drawn to sunny windows like a cat.
But basking in these revelations makes
me also vow to not assess me weak.
I’ll move with caution and avoid the breaks,
but keep on moving. I have passed my peak,
but winding down’s not steep and not a drop.
I breathe. I stretch. I walk. And I won’t stop.
Wisteria compressed by tarpish shade,
and every year delayed by trees that steal
the sun, is budding now. And what’s displayed
are blossoms in two colors. Purple’s real
and white is genuine, for something made
a plant bear both, or maybe set to heal
in time the one we thought we drowned. Some years
it took, but now diversity appears.
“You claim you hunger to be seen, but I’m
exactly opposite,” she said to me.
“You want your loves to understand in time
the inner you, but I’d prefer to be
assessed as I portray, like I’m on prime
TV, and rock a role.” But honestly?
Her quibbles are a habit unrelieved;
I question if this last should be believed.
They say write what you know, and seem to mean
refer to your experience to plot
a narrative, but who could set a scene
with fatal poison taken? No one’s got
to suicide to write the details right.
Some knowledge is required that can come
from research and attention. That is quite
the better way, to expertise, for some.
So don’t recuse yourself from a dispute
about how kids can best be loved and reared,
because you opted not to bear the cute
imposers, or a fertile aim was speared
by circumstance. If thoughtful and with care,
your viewpoint carries value – give it air.
Three years of correspondence I retained
of traded histories and promised sex,
that crashed in realization. I disdained
continuation, but among the wrecks
of revelation I preserved a pile
of printouts that might generate a work
of future fiction. Tucked into a file,
I kept the tracks of Fluffy and the jerk.
Last week I dumped them in the box to shred.
But second-thinking, first I skimmed them all.
Confronting memories of me, instead
of foolishness, I saved some, to recall
true bits misplaced. I googled then, and sighed,
discovering five years ago, he died.
In coming home last Sunday on the train,
I surfaced to the street to find the hue
of sun shade sails that stretch above the main
pedestrian paved area is new.
Where vibrant red once overspread my view,
the fabric’s aqua now, as if to bring
impressions toned like Caribbean blue,
perhaps insinuating hints of spring.
The buds are obviously immature,
containing promises of heavy weight.
Their petals tight as onion skin are sure
to grow apart, send perfume toward the gate,
and lose deep pink for solid yellow lure
to bees and butterflies – such is their fate.
Their growth is cellular and existential,
and now they dazzle me with their potential.
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