April PAD 10: Mama's Garden

MAMA’S GARDEN

That supple ground would stain
your fingers, yet you couldn’t resist

you bend to linger with the earth’s
perfume from the foot of a yam hill

distracted then by a row of new shoots,
new recruits craning towards the sun

you enter deeper, knowing no one
find you here before the day is done

you venture to the path snaking around
tiny plots till you arrive at the family plot

laid before the grandiose apple tree
your roots mingled with its deep anchor

intimidate your futile stance, yet you glance
at the pen and paper in hand and demand

what you came for - the refuge and solitude
from a world in which your words bear no fruit.


Prompt: Write a forest poem/write a tree poem

Poetic Asides Community

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Rushing off to a meeting! Glad to write about a childhood experience of being teased for writing all the time. I would hide behind the tombs under the apple tree in my grandmother's garden to write in my journal because my cousins and siblings were relentless, and sometimes a bit spooked.