During four incredible years of suffering I took pickax, shovel and CD player listening over and over again to Dvorak's concertos... And I sweat. in the rocky earth, ap against wild turkeys and resoureful deer. Hell became a blessing,

My Quiet Grden

In my garden all are flowers,
shining like the Sage beneath
the sacred tree: determined to
bloom and to see.

Buddha, they say, sat
beneath the Bo tree . . .
but he was his own flower garder.

Eventually he walked among the roses:
You who have eyes . . .

And the same sweet music
that pollinated the good earth
sings in me . . . You who have ears.

Why ask why? Life is more a mystery
than your manhood. . . Worker ants
build elabaorate palaces for their Queen.

My thoughts lift among innumerable stems to flow among the new buds,
the fragrance, and the hope,
while the inner Being never ages.

Sometimes I am nearly a man,
and the delicate intensity
of petals brings tears to my eyes.

A simple man, I plant seeds
that may or may not bear fruit,
and reach toward the perfect hope
of a creative and personal god.

Again I visit my gardern with reverence, a carrier of water,
laboring in fields of love,
and hoping by this simple communion
to bear the burden of a man's fruit.

And to know, like the faithful corn,
the power and the beauty
of one honest season.