Poetry: Secret Garden

[jhameia]

Title: Secret Garden
Genre: poetry, blank verse, metaphor
Theme: Nature, sympathy, nurturing
Comments: This was actually meant to be another metaphor of a prison, but I totally lost that draft (yeah, screw me), so when I got the idea for this one I quickly wrote it down and began work on it immediately. I didn't know how else to express it, so I went with blank verse again, and this time used eight syllables a line.
I don't really write a lot of nature poems, but I'm glad I wrote this.


Through the chink in this wall, I glimpsed
wide green pastures and their freedoms
within, the grass too damp for growth.
I saw rivers scattered with gems
That gurgled promises of peace.
Flowers exotic in beauty,
I saw trees reaching for the sky
and a waterfall that trickled,
heard the harmony of songbirds.

But ah! What's this? Your rivers choked
with trees felled by storms that passed through,
Your saplings rendered spindly by
vicious vines of fear, throttling
those buds of hopes, those leaves of faith.
Those pastures trampled, overrun;
Still your flowers bloomed, unfurled in
desperation, supplication:
their mute fragrance touched my cold heart.

You are a secret garden, locked,
forgotten by time, neglected.
Filled with potential, filled with thirst -
my fingers itched to touch your earth.
I want to grind the rotting trees
To humus that will nourish you,
clear the flow of your rivers that
your waterfall be no longer
dammed, bursting into splendid flux.
I want to tend to your trees and
throw the vines off your sad branches
that your hoary majesties may
be laden with fruits from your roots.
I want to nurture your pastures
though my hands calluse to make your
fresh fields all the more flowerclad.
Your narcissus will hold its head
up high, not bow in shame but feel
the love of the sunshine's embrace.
Eve in your Eden, I will be
tending to you, patient and calm,
Spilling blood and tears in your soil.
I long to tear down these high walls,
your man-made and cruel prison
that hides your beauty from the world.

Alas! your door is closed to me.

Comments

[eiko82.livejournal.com]

I'm no poetry expert but that was a really nice poem. I liked reading it :)

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Absolutely beautiful, and very touching, for many personal reasons.

Thank you for sharing. The sentiment conveyed is one I crave.

Email me and I'll send you something I wrote on such a topic some time ago.