The Gardener Comes Back

casting a backward glance
at the absence of the gods
she thinks she is in luck

what's happened yet is not much
the beetle stirs and last night's rain
still hangs on the evergreen

beads of crystal and jet
clink off the juniper as tiny bit
by tiny bit the creeping thyme

pulls the hoary stones apart
slowly the taut thread binding
all things draws the eye

to what forgets the gardener
not the wine red flourish nor the blue black
blazon of hollyhock

only the downy grey-white seedling's one
true leaf poking its head
through a vein in the rock

and there another bends
her attention to the soil the contour
of the downs the world the sun

emerging from the clouds she steps
wielding her knife
for something has started

spilling its seed—
the sacred is an idea
you will not need to sow it twice

Claire Fanger
Copyright © 2003

Claire Fanger is a medievalist and independent scholar and author of a number of articles on medieval religion, literature and magic that have appeared in scholarly books and journals. She also has a long standing interest in the writing of poetry (obtaining an MA in Creative Writing from Boston University in the mid-1980's) though she has only recently begun to publish any of it. Her work is forthcoming in the Beloit Poetry Journal. She is a keen gardener.

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