You sit in your garden but

Where am I?

You, there, surrounded and protected

By fauna and flora

As you swat at bees

And stomp on ants to cross the grass.

You laugh as you eat Light and

Make merry with companions.

I’m lost to that dream now.

It was not my choice

But an accident, unforeseen.

I was just as wanton and naive.

How little I knew of myself,

Or the sun, the rain, the stars,

Or of the end of time.

I was not ready to leave,

So here I am attached to cold stone

With you only in a haze, and

I cannot speak your name for

Lack of a translation.

Where am I but nowhere.

Who am I but no one.

Night is always; always is night.

I cling to the wall of night

With no release and no joy,

Not even you in your garden

Are ready to know me this way.

Not even lightning knows my name,

For it is a mere flicker to my rage.

I am blind in this abyss, stumbling

To find a guest in this forlorn place,

To find a slice of dawn in endless night, where

I am but a mortar to shadows

As you slumber in your garden.

 

Copyright © 2017 Barbara Harris Leonhard

poetry and image (my garden)