Poem: The Resurrection Garden

The Resurrection Garden

The rose garden is blighted,
a victim of neglect and disease.
The passionate red flowers

that thrived here two decades and more,
that filled the air with color and fragrance
and thrilled the heart and eye, are dead,

their leaves black, the stalks empty
of even the smallest bloom.
Only the thorns remain.

What work it is to replant the garden!
Every dead rose you dig from the ground
has deep roots, and their rot

fills the air with sickening odor
so foul, you wish to flee, but you persist.

And when you are done,
when the last rosebush is pulled from the earth,
you discover there is anticipation stronger than disgust.

What to plant there now? Something different,
for you can never recreate the carpet of passionred
that was once this garden. You begin.

There will be winter certainly,
cold and harsh and bitter,
and the garden will lie fallow the whole season,

but then will come the undeniable spring,
and the seeds and bulbs you so carefully plant this day
will bring something new,

a riot of joyful, new colors,
a painting of exotic fragrances,
a resurrection garden of life born anew.

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The picture is from Longwood Gardens in PA. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom