This is For You
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| Annie Spratt for Unsplash |
THIS IS FOR YOU
The tired old poet stoops, pressing another sapling into the soil as though he were stitching the torn edge of time itself. His hands tremble, yet they move with the certainty of rivers shaping stone. He will never taste the fruit, never rest beneath the wide and merciful shade.
Still, he plants. The act is its own inheritance, a covenant written in root and branch. The future gathers in vine, bush, and tree: Persimmon, walnut, loquat, fig, and grape. What he tends now is not for him, but for strangers unborn, who will arrive to find the earth already generous.
True strength is not conquest, but patience—the refusal to hoard today’s sun when tomorrow’s mouths will hunger. A real man’s monument is invisible: a grove whispering with wind, carrying his name in leaves he never touched.
This is for you.
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Prompted by Dverse Poets Pub, this Prosery contains a line from Ivor Winters Time in the Garden.
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A truly sustainable action by the old poet
ReplyDeleteNice one
Much♡love
This is so lovely, Chris! I love the idea of ‘pressing another sapling into the soil as though he were stitching the torn edge of time itself’. I also love ‘a covenant written in root and branch’. This is the icing on the cake: ‘A real man’s monument is invisible: a grove whispering with wind, carrying his name in leaves he never touched’.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of the saplings a poet plants as a metaphor for a growing collection of poetry. How the poet carefully curates his garden and shapes each plant and all the pathways between them.
ReplyDeleteChris, you and I have written to the same themes!
ReplyDelete"True strength is not conquest, but patience" THANK YOU for this, Chris. If everyone followed this as a categorical imperative, Mother Gaia would weep with joy.
ReplyDeleteLove this take on the prompt. Lovely story.
ReplyDeleteArcadia Maria
Very nicely done. I love your ending!
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly like this
ReplyDelete"A real man’s monument is invisible: a grove whispering with wind, carrying his name in leaves he never touched" ... wonderful!
ReplyDelete