grief card 19

--- art and prompt by Jennifer Sargent, The Texture of Memory

The saplings I transplanted in the ground –

Snow Queen nectarine, May Pride Peach, Blood Orange –

are blooming already. But I must nip

the buds to prevent fruit, forestall their sweet

promise, deny the bees and butterflies

their co-labor. These nubs of barrenness

hope bears, but growth is in the damp dark earth.

At birth, my gut protruded, hernia

that blossomed petals and petals of pain. 

When each cry flowered, silence grew in me

a tenebrous and promissory root,

made me hope, laden and verdant with hope.