Napo 20

Today truly was just a freewrite. I'm beyond busy, which maybe comes across in this poem :-P

The prompt was to write a pastoral. I went for a quick walk in my horribly overgrown backyard. I got bit by a few desperate mosquitoes. I saw some hummingbirds battle over the last drops of nectar in the feeder. I destroyed a few spiderwebs with my forehead. Meh.

Napo 20

The weeds take over if you let them,

Drown out everything you’ve planted

Carefully, in a moment when your life

Was something less chaotic. No,

This isn’t the clean, neat garden

You’d planted, complete with herbs,

Chocolate mint, tarragon, and sage

Growing in their tiny garden boxes,

Gardenias, lavender, phlox, blooming

In their flower boxes, the fruit trees

trimmed to maximize efficiency.

No, it’s absolutely overgrown – the rain

Kept coming and you were too busy

To tend to it, to clip, mow, or weed,

And now the garden is beyond repair –

Overrun by whatever took root.

But somehow, beauty finds a way

to thrive, in the swooshing

Of overgrown blades of grass, in the dandelions

Feathery petals, in the vines

That reclaim the fence, spreading

And growing without the help

Of your hands. Somehow, the leaves

All fall where they need to. Somehow,

the earth waters its own with the same storms

that rattled you awake last night, feeds

the hungry mouths with what's left behind.

Somehow, when you loosen your grip

on the world, it doesn’t fall apart.

It keeps spinning, living,

breathing, blooming, thriving.