The Gardener

The Gardener

The landscape was empty; bleak
after so long abandoned.
The property needed work
from Cretaceous to herbaceous,
a great deal of work
for only one gardener;
but a job is a job

in these hard times.

So, I began the renovation

of the garden on the moon.

I planted frankincense and jade,

linen off the line, an impertinent patch

of plum-purple zinnias.

I turned the stoned moondust

with a diamond shovel,

raked the bed smooth with

Cernunnos' horns

to sow the bony seeds:

old fears, old loves, old enemies

pulled from their prickling casings,

sunned by litigant stars,

watered with Phryne's tears;

then I waited

for the display.

Summer was a ripple

and a roar of rioting color,

ivory skulls on fire and the smell

of burning roses. Smiling, I sat

on the edge of a crater

eyes dazzled shut,

palms turned up, each hand

an open vein to let

the fertile self bleed out,

pooling around the roots

in the rows of moongarden,

while each zinnia-head

was a purple balloon

in the utterly defeated

void.

The garden is lovely now--

(if I say so myself, rebuilt by

a true gardener and poète maudit.)

We're in splendor this season--even into the Fall

all ready for the owner

who never comes. 

~March 2017

posted for Fireblossom's Incongruity

at real toads

Process notes: Cernunnos was the Celtic Horned God of life, fertility and the underworld, always depicted with the antlers of a stag. 

Phryne "was an ancient Greek courtesan (hetaira), from the fourth century BC...much praised for her beauty...Supposedly the sculptor Praxiteles, who was also her lover, used her as the model for the statue of the Aphrodite of Knidos, the first nude statue of a woman from ancient Greece...She is best known for her trial for impiety...[where she is described] as clasping the hand of each juror, pleading for her life with tears..." ~wikipedia

poète maudit "..​( accursed poet) ..The phrase "poète maudit" was coined in the beginning of the 19th century by Alfred de Vigny in his 1832 novel Stello, in which he calls the poet "la race toujours maudite par les puissants de la terre" (The race that will always be cursed by the powerful..of the earth)..." ~wikipedia

 

Images: Portrait of The Gardener, Calvert Richard Jones.
Head on a Stem, by Odilon Redon
Public domain