Burning Gardens

There is no
better
way.

Slow, lingering, torturous.

Lightning like.

Dead is death,
whether life or love or
a season of time,
the pain, the loss,
burns like fire,
consumes,
too often leaving
a remnant,
or less,
ashes,
that blow in the wind,
flow to the sky
to be born again,

Phoenix like,
wild and free
from the bonds,
life after life,
a garden that grows greenest
after the conflagration.

About this poem

I can remember when we’d burn the dead stalks of the past year’s garden, and fold the ashes into the soil. It was a sign of spring, that burning.

I have noticed in my life how sweet life becomes after we have mourned whatever we have lost. Yes, the mourning is real and it can be long. But it is not the end.

Tom