I do not consider this version definitive. I began with this on my way to the definitive, 2nd iteration.
*
The woman sits in the dirt,
Digging away in her pots
Planting bulbs.
Others, older, sit on benches
Within the confines of the courtyard.
They are oblivious to her presence.
Each one stares at something
Solely inside of themselves.
The ghost of the poet nearby,
He sits so close to her,
But in another plane.
Omniscient and powerful
Though the poet may be,
He cannot make her hear him,
Much less make her see.
Momentarily, a shadow looms,
Moving to block her light.
She does not need to raise her head
To sense this is some foreigner
With a simpleton’s question.
So condescending, they sound,
Their voices so intentionally small,
As if they were the workers in a ward,
Observing.
“Why are you planting?”
Even now, too polite
To avoid an interloper,
Slowly, she looks up,
Locking eyes with them
To void the question.
“What else should I do?
Just lay in the sun and the dirt
Like that one over there,
Like this one over here?”
Now, as is his wont,
Despite his grief,
The poet interjects,
Sketching the rest:
One arm protruding out,
That one over there is covered with tarp,
This one over here is not,
Quite openly rots.
Behind the bodies,
A concrete edifice Is gored,
Split open again and again.
A residual smoke is wafting
Out from the blackened interiors,
Smelling foul.
Beneath the heavens,
Beneath the warming sun,
This woman continues her planting.
It is a prayerful act, beseeching rain,
Beseeching….
The poet further reveals
The bulbs are a variety of iris.
But now we reach the limit
Of his power.
What will their colors be?
He can’t precisely say.
Blue? Yellow?
Does it matter?
No. We instinctively know
That when the iris bloom,
Each flower will be colored
By the mystery of an irrepressible life.
As if a semaphore,
Their stalks will wave in the wind.
Will they catch the Eye of God?
Lord, hear our prayer:
Sear
The spiritual sores of the oppressed.
Scorch
The souls of the oppressors,
As they finally find their shame.
Steven Golden
April 28 – April 30, 2022
stevengoldenpoetry 