rock garden


i am an old man, now, and tired:
all my friends are being strangled
by the roots of weeds.
days go by unnoticed
on the little plots of earth
they now call home.
maybe one day in a year
they are disturbed
if someone remembers
and the weather isn’t bad.
some days another stranger
joins their ranks
and is forgotten.
no one would ever know
except another rock
has sprouted from the dirt.
months go by unnoticed.
from their point of view,
there are no seasons:
forever is no time at all.
years go by unnoticed
except on faces
of the oldest rocks.

every now and then,
a memory will float up from the dirt,
drift into a rock and pop:
a heavy breeze ruffles blades of grass
on a hill in san francisco,
ice cubes clink in a nearly empty glass
of august lemonade,
tiny hands grip new handlebars
with pink streamers
so tightly knuckles soon turn white,
shells whistle from the night sky,
rain clumps of earth on a cold, steel hat,
a lace veil lifts,
uncovers two blue diamonds
well worth looking at a lifetime,
spunky’s bark echoes
off an april moon.

cars whiz by the chain link fence,
oblivious.
their occupants might glance
in secret terror at this garden
since the living have no future,
only moments of the present
which pop inexorably
like the tick-tock of a clock.

© Mark E. Dougherty