Sorrow’s Gardener

Sorrow’s Gardener

I’m apprenticed to you.  Through time’s screen                                                                   

I glimpse you in the garden with                                                                   

galoshes and a spade.  You say      

                                                                           

you know how to plant sorrow.  I                                                                  

have sorrows, I reply.  I’ve lain                                                                                 

in bed these years, sifting silence.   

                                                              

My day is faded like the room,                                                                                  

the wheelchair waits, my thoughts insist                                                       

the world has turned away.  You give        

                                                               

me your hand, that you might bury                                                               

my cares in soft earth.  June’s a choir,                                                          

you claim; it can turn pain to               

                                  

peonies that flush with life for

ten heady days.  Yet still I clutch grief,                                                         

doubtful that blooms could grow in such                                                      

soil of loss, for I am your halting,                                                                 

younger self—scared of hope—even                                                            

as you sing the mending sun’s return.                                                           

Veronica Ashenhurst has published both poetry and articles on legal education.  Her poems appear in Health Affairs, MORIA Literary Magazine, Star 82 Review, and Wordgathering, among other journals.  Her poetry has been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology. 

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