Your Own Gardender

Alas, I am rejected again. I submitted the following poem awhile back, and found now like the others, it was rejected. It's alright, I suppose. I am going to submit another. In the meantime, here is the rejected poem.

Your Own Gardener
Dig at that empty earth
Spread its treasure across your past
Until the weed that is
Resembles the vine that was
Destiny planted into past as a tree
And called a seed

Shape your past and future
Into one present
A semi-precious mound
Beloved, you think, by you in former dreams
And dappled with the precious light
Of a soothsayer who, with trained hands, kneads worries into platitudes
Until they harden under
The full baking of the sun

Tend your budding apprehensions
Lest you think the vine grown before its time
Clip, then
Clip away their tender shoots
Binding them to the vine
To make them such a part of you
That you know and are known by them

Pray, in time, that with the nourishment of your tears
The weight of its fruit will fall
Down
Into hands open for consolation
Soft as they are
Bred as they were to palm dreams turned vintage
And be led by the hands of a gardener
Their eyes blinded by you
As blinded you are
Having stared too long at a never-setting sun

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Savior

This wasteland cold and dark runs free Its fearful creatures speak to me One fateful day one nudged my hand To set my eyes upon a tree He knew I could not understand For I was in his native land His signs became our common speech To lead me through the deadly sand Now stuck I saw him me beseech He could not lift me out to reach The firm foundation of a cave Outside the boundaries of this beach Withal, the beast became more brave To risk his own my life to save To carry me, its life it gave To carry me, its life it gave. This poem was inspired by Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." That poem, like this one, has four four-line stanzas of eight syllables per stanza. Its rhyme scheme is AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD.

Ghosts

Exercising at a gym seems to be pretty important in our culture, but it's kind of weird to see the social dynamics when you're there. Usually, if you're running an errand, you see others doing the same thing, going about their days and focusing on what's in front of them. The same thing happens at the gym, only everyone is relatively stationary. They don't really go anywhere, except from one machine or area to another. One might think this lends itself to lots of interaction between members, especially since they're all there for the same purpose, but it isn't true. Not only do people generally avoid talking to one another, but they also avoid even looking at one another. It is as though there is no one else there, even though there are dozens on any given day. Most people follow this unwritten rule, unless something in the environment-- say, two people wanting to use the same set of weights-- gives them common ground to interact, or unless they've alr...

The Nice Guy Fallacy

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