Longing
I
built a small rock garden next to the stone patio, just steps away
from
the old kitchen with its nineteen thirties
cabinets
that have doors that wouldn’t close refusing to keep
their
ghosts locked; I didn’t go far searching, I used the stones
that
lay in the backyard, most of them flat –
parts
of what once was a perfect border – now buried
underneath
the overgrown lawn, when scraped clean their gray
showed the sparkle in it; the rest – that
I
would like to think were left behind when the frozen
waters
retreated melting some years before my time – formed
the
crescent-shaped foundation upon which
I piled the flat ones, building what resembled
an Irish wall of sorts,
my
small rock garden becoming more of a raised bed, a vessel to be
filled
with fresh dirt, parsley and dill seeds
when
spring comes after the long wait; on top of the wall
I
put two stones with words imprinted on them, the kind they sell
at
nurseries, a gift, “hope” read the one,
the
other “joy”, I seem to have misplaced the third one –
“love”.
Live for the Love of it,
Sasha A. Palmer ("Happy")
