Lodi Garden

I walk down to the old monument,
to the garden
with its familiar pathways.
Stride them down
away from my self,
Strike them out
from my heart,
Outpace my steps
There is no way.

The calm of the horizon,
my turbulent mirror,
shows me my
many fractured faces,
my many heightened lives.
The dusk
the birdsong
the grass
the very air
wrenches
the tears out
of my lungs,
the blood out
of my veins.
They flow unabated
The salt of life
The has-been
The am-not
The will not-be.
All around
lives breathe free.
Children play.
Families laugh.
Lovers hold hands.
Parrots fly.

The flowers on the hedge
mark the cubits of the  past.
The squirrel at my feet,
is a lone retreating back,
a receding figure.
The bird
in the foliage,
the unseen hand of things.
A mute witness
to my fatigue
of remembering,
to my hope
of being remembered--
The old monument
In the dusk.