"I keep having this dream that there is a garden
growing inside my chest, under the bones."
~ Melissa Studdard
Tonight is an eye feast:
the honeysuckle climbing
over pickets in a long chain-link fence,
the soft swirl of wind teasing
the topmost branches of a mulberry.
Dusk, dying a blue-headed Friday
a deep shade of ebony.
How crafty this summer’s eve!
Shadows make worn and broken things beautiful—
like this dilapidated barn.
A family of tumbleweeds sits in the middle
of the cracked concrete floor rocking.
The aged slats look like a rib cage;
fortitude engraved its initials in rotting wood.
At Freedom Park, a jittery frog leaps
from the moon-stamped pond then disappears.
Who can resist such gifts, or hold happiness hostage
when this West Texas desert offers such splendor?
Look at this sky’s buffet of delicious stars!
Their champagne-light drips from a flute of darkness
into the unprotected yawn of a scalped pasture.
|