Life's methaphoric journey somehow seems to always lead to the garden... despite the many roads we take. The when and where we find it could be anywhere. The how we deal with it is up to us!
It happened.
In just a blink,
waiting to pay,
I went from "Miss..."
to "Ma'am..."
He was just a baby himself
trying on some manners.
"Ma'am...
excuse me Ma'am..?"
I heard his voice echo
through a distanced stare.
I'd been so busy
for years...
raising children,
cooking,
cleaning,
throwing out the garbage...
adding furniture
at the mercy of our budget,
painting,
repainting,
pain-stakingly
piecing together good memories
like a puzzle...
I stood there perplexed for ages it seemed.
He had no idea how much he'd aged me!
"Ma'am..."
He insistantly repeated,
This time finishing his sentence with
"...paper or plastic?"
"Ma'am?"
"Ma'am?"
I finally heard him.
"Oh! Hmmm... Sorry!
You decide..."
I said with a sigh of surrender
and a short-lived smile.
Little did he know.
"He might've found me attractive once"
I thought
as I shook my tail with purpose
all the way back to my car!
Scanning the parking lot,
I'm sure that
No one noticed.
Maybe that was a good thing!
I couldn't help but laugh out loud
and mumble to myself,
"So, this is it!"
while I thought about the possibility
of going home
and growing a garden...
Wow! You capture of moment, a common experience, expressed in many forms of art, such as "Fiddler on the Roof"'s "Sunrise, Sunset" - only in the 21st century. And the garden metaphor is timeless.
First Edition Translation of Teselas by Carmen Crespo X111 César Simón Poetry Prixe 2016 Translated from Spanish by Robin Ouzman Hislop and Amparo Arrospíde
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