This is a new series of poetry it will be complete with photographs of the garden as well as paintings. The premise of this collection is the idea of a garden, it has been the escape that I needed during darker times and it is symbolic of how I see life. There are many regular plants that I plant every year and they all have some sort of symbolic significance. The reason I started gardening in the first place was to attract wildlife, than it was to learn for the subjects in my painting and finally it was for peace and calm. Nature has always been a significant part of my creativity and this is the culmination of the experiences that surround a gardener soothed and haunted by nature.
I will create a final post and most likely a self published book the near future when it is complete.
Bird song 1
I love the sound of the wren
It sings
Literally,
Excited swirls of notes from high to low
And back
Barely seen
The streaming tones
Through deep green leaves
Constant
Emphatic
Determined
But still
The mourning dove
Keeps me still
Keeps me remembering
The sadness
The end of summer
Calm and pensive
Unshakable
It doesn’t sing
It hums
Much like the cicada
Much like the breath of a late summer day
But I seek out the wren
I seek out its beautiful sound
in hope that it will…sing again
An Absence
I was feeling absence beneath the shadows
Of trees
I was barely a presence
Among the dragonflies
And flies
Buzzing
I was barely flesh, barely bone
Nothing
Amidst the primevial moment
Where the garden became
Its’ tender
Out of my reach
The dying leaves
The starving thirsting
Stems
Bend and meet the ground
I can’t save them
I can barely walk
In the stagnant heat
And all my expectations
Seem like rain
In late August heat
Pointless
The gardener
With hands so hopeful
Now watch the harvest
Become
Despite his careful tending
Wilting buds
And rotten plums
The flies take everything
Nothing goes to waste
But I was hoping, perhaps ideally
For just one more taste
Shrike
Hopes that I might not hang on that perilous steel,
The thorn
Borrowed from the fence row
He cleans the field
Death is all around us
In the grasses
Beneath the clouds
Hope that I might never go to waste
The long steel ropes
Across the field
Keeps my eyes to the ground
Quiet among the things that do not speak
Keep us close to the ground
And never make a sound
Keep us tight to the thorn
Waiting
Devoured by this oppressive summer day
Exhausted the breath
The embrace of a silver thorn
Hope that I might not be a casualty
That my life should mean something more…
Passionvine in Bloom
The passionvine entwines
The fence
Hope it reminds me
Why I’m here
The perilous stamens
The sweet mystique
A flower that barely blooms
But can not hide its fragrance
Hope that autumn is coming soon
Sleep silent in the ground
Roots remembering its beauty
Waiting for the next summer day
That it might once again
Be seen
That way
Cassia Alata
The candlestick plant
A light but no flame
Rise out of the ground
To fall again
When the ground is frozen
Leaving seeds
Just memories
To barter in the spring
So much work to grow these amazing spires
Rise and meet the heat of a summer day
No reluctance
For suffering
No penance beneath the stagnant air
No water
No special attention
Look next summer when there’s nothing left to save
Again
The seed will find its way
A candle in the darkness
A beautiful yellow light,
its only flame
All words, photographs and paintings in this post- copyright by Art by Gordon 
2015
