The health of a garden
is reason’s burden.
….. —J.C. Ransome
The Health of a Garden
Thinking of the first garden so confidently
laid out to greet the newly created.
English Country? French formal> Some plan
to separate it from wilderness.
The old puritan had our fore-beings
weeding and pruning – the garden not
permanently perfect, then, not imperishable
like a plastic ficus – but changing
and the change needed attention.
When Eve thought the rhododendron
would look better over there, the worm
Free Will entered the orchard
and the free fall to after apple-picking,
and the great harvest, history.
by Nils Peterson
from All the Marvelous Stuff
Caesura Editions, 2019