Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘domes’

In the Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 1, 2024| 12 Comments »


for Jen Meyer
 
 
It was innocent to start,
how Jenny and I gathered the dried
bits of cacti that had fallen on the trail
in the desert dome in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Inside the dome, it was hot; outside, snow,
and at eight years old, we had never
before seen anything so prickly, raised
as we were amongst trillium and violets.
 
Perhaps the docents had told us not to touch.
Surely we knew better
than to take something we found,  
but we gathered the strange and spiky rounds
like the treasure they were
and carried them in our knit hats.
 
Years later, I can’t recall how we were caught.
But I remember the sting of thousands
of hair-thin spines in my scalp, my skin.
That was how I learned something unusual
and beautiful could also be cruel, that
some things will hurt you simply because
that is how they are made.
 
But oh, how I love that girl, the one
who wanted so badly to touch
and be touched by the world.
Keep touching, I want to tell her.
Even when it hurts. There is so much
you will never know any other way.

Read Full Post »