The Garden – A Prose Poem

Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash

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For many years the garden lay neglected.
Fallow,
overgrown with sorrow weeds and thorny trauma brambles.
Creative stream choked off,
the source strangled by fear.
No longer filling the deep story pool.
Unable to attract sparkling dragonflies of fantasy,
buzzing idea bees or paradise birds flights of fancy.

The weeping willow shedding its leaves in grief.
Becoming naked skeleton of raking nightmare fingers.
The starving muse wilts and fades.
Retreating into dark amnesic mist under the onslaught of anxiety rain,
depressive storms.

A bolt of awakened lightning sheared through the bruised cloud cover.
Putting the strangling weeds in flames.
Rekindling the suffocated creative fire.
Birthing a fierce Phoenix from the flames.
Rousing the sleeping muse with a song of newfound life.
Hailing the first ray of kind sunlight.
Praising the smatter of nurturing rain.

Now the garden blooms and grows.
Tended by the muse and the soul Phoenix.
The brook babbles and laughs as it flows.
The air is filled with fragrance,
the sound of wings of every shape and size.
Safe in the knowledge their host will never again,
let anything her creativity compromise.

©RedCat

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Photo by Jie on Unsplash

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Written for Poetics: Garden(ing) at dVerse. As I took my evening walk, thinking about gardens and gardening. This is what came to mind. Following a thought about one of the first writing communities I found “Imaginary garden with real toads”. A place that made me feel welcome and a place who’s kind encouragement kept me writing through all my doubts, making me think that I could do this. I know many of you might have a hard time believing it. But I’ve been writing poetry for less than two years. I’m still finding my way and my voice.

This is not the first and probably won’t be the last time I’ve written something very personal to a prompt. My writing is both pent up creativity poured out, and a form of dealing with and working through everything that’s happened to me.

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Photo by Jeff Finley on Unsplash