A Garden Walking

Weak knees, ankle deep in the mud of my planting.
Cracking shells of seeds with a clenched jaw,
all the while we’ve been bent low, dug in worship,
rows sowed with humble woes, you simply weren’t.
So what will you water with, with what will you draw
the strength of remembrance? Oh, our common griefless
altar, peppered with whisper and laughter.
Oh! Clear this temple of blasphemous talk,
of those who simply will not walk with intent,
with lament, of those who drown out the soil,
of those who recoil from the unpreventable touch,
intimate, unsettling, refusing painful wrestling with a fearful Presence.
Approaching fields of wheat, of substance,
there is a seriousness to the harvest, and to the planting.
Ah, you’ve beaten a shameful path through our slower garden,
choking all the growing wheat with faster, popping, pretty weeds.
So now who will this field feed? (And certainly my
idle hands are not producing) still,
this is not what I planted.