The garden

The flower does not wilt

nor does the flesh decay. 

Yes, there is a change, 

a season, a cycle, a shift,

but we choose to describe it 

this way, as if that marks an end,

all cadence and no modulation. 

There is no end. 

There is a choice of words, a slur. 

The grave is a trove of words

we drag mud-tongued across the world,

slandering it with our own mortality, 

as if we crouch beneath the low ceiling

of a bunker just big enough for our grief.

We retreat into this place from another,

open, bright with love, free from time,

and occupy an underworld 

where time passes and we let death

mark its passing and be the author of our lives

according to his grim schedule.

It is the poet's duty to declare

that only love is real,

and sometimes this may require us to sing

of what a world without love looks like

but make no mistake: we know the tomb

from which we broadcast our sombre report

is an illusion, the words we use

scripted for us by liars and cowards,

and there is another song to sing

beyond the threshold of a worm's ear

in a garden that is always in bloom,

where the flower does not wilt

nor does the flesh decay.