What the Garden Keeps
I planted things I was not sure would survive me —
the way you do when the hands need something to tend,
when the heart requires an outside place to put its hoping.
The roses do not know about my winters.
They come back anyway, pink and unreasonable,
pushing through the same dark soil every April like a argument for continuing.
There is a language here I am still learning —
the marigold's particular insistence, the lavender's grey patience,
the way the garden receives whatever I bring to it without asking why.
I come here when the words run out.
The flowers do not need me to explain myself.
They only need the water and the showing up.
artwork and poetry ©Stacy Stephens