The Leaving 2021

It’s springtime and the garden is leaving.

I stand on the perimeter of the garden, toes barely touching the soil

One hand lies idle in an empty pocket.

I reach out to gently clench a leaving between my fingers.

I rub my thumb along the surface,

Up from the base out to the edges

            Which are rough-hewn, still expanding, still stretching, still aspiring.

Verdant, expectant: veins stretch in miraculous complexity

Extending toward a glistening and unstinting divine light;

Vainglorious.

I stand on the edge of the garden, silent sentinel,

            Guardian of this Eden,

Witnessing the perennial leaving.

Each season, I stand in awe of the leaving.

You see, it wrestles with nothing:

            Fears no natural predator,

            Entertains no concern for error,

            Emboldens itself in accidental intention.

Visitors here, I’m sure, will gasp at this garden

With its explosive canopy of color –

            Preposterous pansy, boisterous bluebell, flamboyant lantana –

Reverential to the pyrotechnics of natural selection.

But I know

It is the quiet; it is the underscored undergrowth;

It is the leaving that matters.

The leaving holds the lifeblood.

I suppose the dirt embedded in my fingernails

And in the creases in the skin of my palms

Is evidence that I was some instrument in the leaving.

Yes, yes – I seeded, I fed, I pruned.

            Of course, of course, I did.  As did others.

We were merely guardian gardeners gifted to be grounded in sumptuous soil.

We age, but the leaving remains timeless.

We age; we remain.  Our own leavings are far behind us.

And here, now, again:

Springtime.

The viridescent springing of time.

Upon your leaving, I stand silent sentinel

And, with hesitant willfulness, unclench my fingers

As you burst forth blissfully into a glistening and unstinting divine light.

Just know

My love for you courses soundlessly through the veins

of the leaving.