The Garden

http://betterdaysradio.blogspot.com/

I said to my soul, "What have you done
with the garden entrusted to you?"

-Antonio Machado

Do you have those days, my friend, when no matter
what you find to do, in your heart it doesn't feel as though
this is what the day truly calls for?

As a man who writes, I wrestle with this feeling.
It used to be that it came with a vague sense of
guilt or failure, as if something grand was awaiting me
if only I could find the gate and pass through.

The artist is granted little respect in our culture,
and amid these purposeful disorderings of the senses --
so necessary in finding and hearing and writing down
the voices which rise from the bed below -- one's left
disoriented and adrift, open to ridicule,
an easy victim of judgment and prejudice.

Then the phone rings and it's someone dear
wondering how you could've forgotten to call them
as you promised, wondering how you happened to
miss the meeting that was planned.

Sometimes, I'll admit, I don't remember
promising anything to anyone. Meetings
Why don't you just come over for a coffee?

I am interested in memory under memory,
skins lifting away, blood becoming louder,
the voices of the dead and invisible singing again.
This kind of remembering requires
permission to forget.

Then a song comes, slowly, forcing open
the skin, and you feel something waking inside,
pushing. So you go walking in the rusted kingdom
of the April sun, certain that it's okay again,
yes, even if no one understands.

It suffices, this calling, and is the humble way
you tend the garden entrusted to you.

DL