POEM - My Garden and I

My garden has this tired look
In fawning light that crooks
Through arborvitae and quiet tones
Of earthy tissue and tree-limbed bone,
These rounded humps of dirt
Now drawn and slumped and so inert;
Become this kind of gray-brown earth
Like a woman after giving birth
Weak, but joy tints what she has done;
Sweaty, her willingness has run
Its course, she reclines in muted glory:
Shouting in one great whisper this circle story.
The mound of saddening leaves remain
To celebrate this holiday of fruit and pain;
This flag that honors majestic loss
To the white full lipped kiss of frost.

My garden and I have this worn down heart -
Let winter now step up and do its part.

M C Biegner
11/2005