Garden Lines

I took that photo in my garden a couple days ago. While bending down with the camera to photograph some flowers, I saw this little fella wriggling around! I like earthworms. They are cute and good for the ecosystem. When it rains and they come onto the sidewalk, I save them from being smushed by feet. I took this photo last winter:



Fittingly, my most recent sonnets have been set in gardens, and have employed "green thumb"-type imagery. The first one even mentions earthworms!

11/9/2013

Something grows on you tonight. I wonder
if the curls of green have roots in your blood.
The slow sun fell and we became fonder
of our earthworm friends wriggling out of mud.

Plants and soil-snakes drowning in all this rain
and I keep asking, "Get out of the bath!"
You don't want to be a garden in vain,
all dark swamp soup and no pretty rock path.

Something grows on you completely, and I
like the way you look in this brittle green.
Twigs snap in my hands. First you flinch and sigh,
then you tell me to bury what I've seen.

Your face is wet, rough bark smeared with sap gold.
Fresh scent leaking but too sticky to hold.

11/10/2013

A quiet world that would be good for us
isn't blooming in my dreams anymore.
Instead they are full of strong flower fuss,
a pretty-smelling squabble at the door.

What do you sleep on, my darling, my dear?
I hope you conjure a garden like mine.
Uneasy and fragrant as it is here,
with red bustle rose ruffles just as fine.

Maybe you are withering like my past,
dried up and cried up, your grey roots cracking.
Cliches agree: forever doesn't last.
Even for a gardener's favorite king.

We had a quiet world saved in my dream.
It's lost in a seed sack; drowned in a stream.