Linda Studley

The Garden Green

The garden of my dreams is green on green,
every step alive with sighing shadow.
Each twig and leaf a real and sentient soul
whispering peace with every snap and bruise,
forgiveness in each drop of sap it bleeds
to heal my heart and send me out renewed.

Pondering the cost of my renewal
I wonder how I could have been so green
to worry those old wounds until they bled.
Mem’ries pool upon the floor like shadows
that in the morning light will leave a bruise,
a dark patch on the floor boards of my soul.

It must be such a tender thing,  this soul,
to be in constant need of renewal,
easy to hurt and all too quick to bruise,
to bloom in shades of yellow, mauve, and green
not unlike the garden, deeply shadowed,
the only place I can staunch the bleeding.

It’s dawn now in the garden, daylight bleeds
through leaf and bough and lands upon my soul
spreading warmth and dazzling the shadows.
I rise to face the world again, renewed.
and watch the rising sun lick the trees green,
purple night recedes like fading bruises

The coffee sings and hiccoughs as it brews,
dribbling stains like rings of ochre blood
across a tablecloth of white and green
sprinkled with daisies that some lonely soul
stitched upon it long ago renewing
faith that simple things can banish shadows.

I close my eyes and I see the shadows,
the green on green where every blooming bruise
becomes a flower in a world renewed,
where strength to carry on runs in the blood,
where one can always save a wounded soul
within the sacred garden, green on green.

There is no shadow so dark or bleeding,
so damaged, so bruised, that the tired soul
can’t find renewal in the garden green.

#338

Okay, I’m throwing it out there – who knows what form this poem is written in? The first one to answer correctly gets a copy of the book.