Mysteries in the Garden
janine canan
The little fat girl sits and swings
and swings. From the house
voices rise strident and cruel.
Clouds glister on the water -- everything shivers.
Higher and higher, she swings in silence.
*
An old man chops down two rose trees,
inextricably twined over an arbor.
Stacks logs by the stump of the fire rose --
to burn or plant anew.
The woman waits for a cutting of the deeper red.
*
Scratching at the dirt, her fingers burning,
she digs up the bones, and cries hoarsely
Give me what I need!
We can't, they mutter, dissolving in the dust,
disappointing her for the last time.
*
Two lilies float -- for a moment no suffering,
only stillness of the violet water.
Hope disappears in the gauzy white petals.
Light enters the yellow stamen.
Powdery pads float on the surface.
*
In one hand the Goddess holds the scythe --
in the other She holds the golden seed.
At Her feet a woman kneels.
Flames flare up, and slowly curl
their charcoal petals over the past.
*
A woman buried herself in the garden.
Now out of a poppy field -- roaring red,
tender pink, burnished green, she rises.
Mauve and blue trees enter her
as she spreads in the wide gold dusk.
