Black Garden
All the World's Ills
Fresh the growth yet old as time;
Ancient as sin reborn into crime;
The world on its axis,
Like the rose on its stem,
Defoliates presumption
In turning round again.
Turning its face to a balsamic
moon,
The sun smiles its promise
Upon the shadow of gloom;
The night gains principle,
A soul in tarry flourish,
A justification for the muck and the boorish.
Reaching its peak of darkness in thicket,
The black garden opens,
Redeeming the wicked
With their own venom –
the beauty of sin –
The patch in the garden where all began to begin.
Behold the garden now:
Self-tending, it thrives,
A viny reality constricting our lives.
Lush, jet fear, paranoia, and stress,
Salads of toxins defying redress;
Orchards of felony,
Groves of disease,
The renewing fecundity of dread and unease;
Poverty, profanity, prodigality in bloom,
Hunger and war in burgeoning doom;
Bitterroot envy,
Snapdragon greed,
Daisies of lies,
Lilies of need;
Forget-me-not vengeance,
Poppy addiction,
Bleeding Heart grief,
Violet affliction.
Here it all is –
the pride of our wealth –
Unconscious cultivation with slithering stealth;
The necessity we've grown,
A black paradise lost,
Demanding reward from our finding its cost.
Yet in this dismal truth coldly laid bare,
A few velvet leaves reveal satiny glare,
Their evil diminished by reflected white light,
The face of sun behind bewitchment's midnight.
Greater truth haunts to hint from above:
Essence of the morning glory of love.
– Mary Jo Magar –