It’s
August and it’s time to make my way back to Write…Edit…Publish even as I pack
up after the home leave and return to my second home, which is actually the first home because that's where I am most of the year. WEP, hosted by Denise and Yolanda, is where we gather to share and hone our creative skill sets - mostly writing, but wide open also to other artforms/interpretations. Click the link to find out more. And jump in with your take on the prompt if you like.
The prompt this time is 'gardens' and I am back with another of my experiments in poetry – this one a 14X14, a series of 14 themed sonnets. Only
the word limit means fitting in 10 and not the entire 14. Which matters not a bit, because each part is
complete in itself and can be read independently on its own as well as part of
the series. And my treatment of the prompt deviates from the suggestions by the hosts in that I am not talking about any one garden in particular - this entire earth is a garden and I am beyond thrilled to be in it, whatever the landscape, whatever the season, all beautiful, all good...except when Man gets too smart and messes things up big time.
I.
Point
me to the earth, always, always,
even
one thousand years later,
when
all you have is some fragments
and
this yellowed, sparse dust of paper.
When
words have lost their hundred tongues,
cities
have plucked their hundred streets
and
thrown them like javelins straight and hard,
when
the meek come to leash the elite;
the
smoke from rocks is tightly curled,
the
sun’s lava a wrinkled-skin moon.
The
skyscrapers have their yawns shushed
but
still silence won’t carry a tune.
Point
me to the Earth even then,
to
lost wildflowers, fossils of pollen.
II
Point
me always to the horizon,
grind
me small into the wild gardens
even
when they’re wholly paved over
by
old snowflakes and stonemasons.
When
the trees have shuddered off their leaves,
when
the only bird is just a clock
and
time has stumbled into its own crease,
and
can’t move or turn on the peptalk.
Earthworms
have burrowed for so long
that
they’ve gone off the deepest end.
When
fingers scratch at concrete lots,
caravans
march but don’t befriend.
Point
me always towards the soil
through
the centuries, through the turmoil.
III
Lay each of the fragments on the ground
even
when the grounds have been war,
and
each cup has raised a tempest
and
stormhands and strong handlers roar
even
when the good earth’s frozen
and
the bad earth’s melted and burnt;
dig
me deeper, deeper, even then
when
singleminded sods can’t be turned.
Each
village tears up its neighbour’s steps,
the
broad river scurries underground,
oceans
of oily fury shred,
summer
bulbs, human ribs and sounds.
Push
me deeper then under the sands
where
the tides can’t get at the land.
IV
Where
every dream and mote is scorched
and
the heat unbearably high -
no
seeds can sleep, no grain’s ever tossed,
no
sphinx ever moved its stony thigh.
Point
me there, when there’s zilch to point
when
the garden’s left without its guard,
the
beds are just one lump of ruins,
each
one of the orchards is charred;
where
the mudtrack’s run out, like tears
along
the sagging cheeks of settlements.
Point
me there, when all are oblivious
to what
gardens and orchards once meant.
Even
when the earth’s just embers,
ash
and smoke, and no-one remembers.
V.
Point
me always towards the mud
where
a million ranks of marching men,
a
million pairs of sturdy boots
have
churned up the guts of the fallen.
If
you can make out what was the heel -
place
it deep where the blood and organs
have
soaked into layered stone and soil,
braid
the hair into the veins of veins.
Point
me always to this wide earth
even
when it’s narrowed down by men;
when
the stench of greed fouls its old rivers,
uproots
and lays waste each garden,
even
when it’s slicked with guts and gore
of
millions in an ancient, endless war.
VI.
Sharpen
me like a pencil point
and
sow my tip right into the earth;
stab
me deep, plant me fathoms down
where
molten metal transforms the dirt,
where
primordial feuds like dragon teeth
grind
in sleep, biding their time to sprout;
work
me in lovingly, in so deep
that
the longest scythes can’t cut me out
and
the most vicious spades cannot reach.
Let
my points, be they one or hundred
be
mindful of the company they keep
and
come to rest always in the mud.
What’s
the use of sharpness otherwise
if
all it’s slicing is empty skies?
VII
Plant
me when all the springs are over
and
even the winters have long gone
on
tiptoes one after the other
and
the day’s just a seasonless dawn,
the
skies are apple green and their clouds
come
in nimbus wrecks and cirrus shells,
the
furrows deadly straight but obscured
and
the rain’s just a dreaded acid swell.
Plant
me when the weather’s never there -
entire
climate’s din is quiet at last
because
it’s lost its bearings, unclear
if
it’s present at all or it’s just past.
Sow
me even then deep into the sludge
when
season’s just a meaningless smudge.
VIII
Point
me to the earth even when
the
borders between the ground and sky
are
hard to tell apart, hard to sense
the
ends of low and the start of high.
You’ll
know the place where your feet stand
shovel
there and you’ll find my place too
down
in the heart of earth, well beyond
the
colourless winds and skies and seablue.
Keep
me safe in the closed fists of mud,
wrap
fingers of soil about my soul,
and
even if you can’t, it’s enough
to
touch the earth and be healed and whole.
Point
me always towards the earth
not at death, from the first spasm of birth.
IX
I
don’t need the wings, I don’t need
to
fly anywhere, to be close
to
the orbits of stars and galaxies.
Enough
that I walk in the boroughs
of
milkweed and long grass, quite enough
to
feel the sands scorch my bare feet,
the
morning mist melt into the mud
and
lift again at midday heat.
A
vine, a tree, a fruit and a serpent
suffice
to make this a garden
suppose
it’s only the snake, I’d still want
to
be here always, even then.
Don’t
fret if you can’t dig much, can’t shove
me
deep. Just a touch of earth is enough.
X
Point
me always towards the earth,
place
me firmly on it or below -
a
Midas embrace in reverse
drawn
gold from this dust, full from hollow,
morphed
into something rarer, finer,
in
moments and over eternities.
Lay
me down and embed me firmer
into
these landscaped uncertainties.
Point
me always, always to this earth,
forget
what edens lie beyond grasp.
Pinpricks
of light in wide smears of dark -
the
sky’s a void too empty to clasp,
so
place me here, freezing sands or warm,
these gardens
of wastelands. And I’m home.
W.C -993
And I'm actually home in stable wifi zone in a couple of days more, and will definitely come around then if I haven't been able to do so before. It's great being back here at WEP.....point me to WEP always.. :)
