The Gardener - April 9

The thornbit fingertip of an old and ending gardener
catches a sliver, pushes forth a bulb of blood,
which catches the morning lavender light
flowing in the window.

I’ve got a bottle of Benchmark bourbon
I’ve been pouring into everything lately:
Old lucky number 8.
Coffee and whiskey for breakfast.

I keep trying to remind myself that this is just an exercise, there’s nothing particularly tragic about it when the words don’t come out right, when my dayold ramblings read back a waste of time, just to remind myself that This is just an exercise.

Do you catch my drift like blood catches light, comin in the window?
She told me she hates to see me like this: passionless.

Perhaps the only thing that made me what was worth me being was passion:
the flintstock catchafire, lightafire, burnin’ down the rye.
Now the rye is burnin down my throat and I feel lofty:
Eastern scribbleture, saints and sages, noninvolvement
–Oh, Sri Krishna, come gimme one a dem Arjunas, and make ‘er shnappy!

And one day, when her father wins, and Miami quiets down for the season, and the call comes in wild, ‘Doctah! Doctah!’ and she steps up to the platter of her responsibilities and the flame is finally, irrevocably extinguished…then will you know, then will the Word echo out across the plains:
The gardener has retired.

(Time Passes)

Here’s your eulogy (see you at the Crossroads):
He was a warm man, the best of men, always remembering your name and asking how your surgery went. He was a warm man, the kindest of men, always making sure you had a beer in your hand and asking if you were having a good time. She was a warm woman, the best of women, maybe the nicest of all the nice.
And there was talent there, oh yes! so much talent, entire worlds conveyed through the banality of translation. And there was strength there, oh yes! so much strength, turning what was broke into what was wholeagain, by the books, better than the books. And there was mastery there, oh yes! was there mastery: of the Word that was the deal - that was to bring back returns for everyone with something invested in success.

Oh there was family there, warm blood and cohesion, hand holding hand marching red into the foggy dawn, the ambiguous dawn, the ambidextrous dawn: there was love! An ongoing project of creation, the gentle caress of a gardener’s callous finger, the downy quiver of a freshripe nettleleaf, for, as you know-
some prefer nettles.

A heartstorm bucked akimbo with tears falling for someone I’ve never met:
a son/brother breaking down:
a son I’ve also never met.
The scene fades to Folsom Prison Blues, where each note is emphasized according to the specifics of the story being told. It’s a story Johnny Cash never heard in all his life: the story of a man who was born about the time the author died. A story of continuity, a story of self-awareness, aching expression born through an awareness of the feeling of being one’s Self, within the self, distant (and caught!) observing the self, through a mirror:
blueprinted through the palegrey eyes of another.

...

Stop! You’re not telling it right! You don’t have the right feeling! Who the fuck are you to tell the story of who she was, you didn’t even fucking know her! Is it possible to be less relevant while trying to be more universal?!
Pssst,..Mr. G, you had a story to tell me. You tried to tell it to me. You didn’t like my reaction, though. You didn’t like my process, my response, and you sure as fuck didn’t like my laughter. Truth be told, there was failure in all of the telling, and that my friend, is very telling.
An audience is only so good as it matches the ideal of the messenger.

When they die, whose aesthetic will paint the service? Does it even matter? Or is it the last, most essential loyalty? Faith that it’s about who they truly were, a test to see who was actually listening, who saw when everyone else looked into their eyes and saw only a mirror.
But then again, they’re dead now, right? So…fuck it.

Was hisself/herself ever really good enough or was it all somehow functional? Was it somehow the role of the teller, the hearer, the holder, and the encourager? When those walls of untranslatable miscommunication threaten to Trojan horse those feelings of love, kinship, heart-to-hard-hearted companionship, then under what do we…standing tall for what do we…moving forward towards ambitions of the…how do we…?

The gardener washes off his finger with a chuckle,
then returns to his plants.
He looks briefly out his window to the setting sun,
thankful, loving.
If not for the warmth and light,
how could his garden grow?