Zen in the Garden

Blades, all in line,
instantly recognized, quickly named: a dreary meadow,
nothing else.

Shrubs, stones, water holes, deadwood,
tirelessly set out, dragged in, dug out, piled up,
over time.

Toads arrive first, then the birds,
just no more mowing, no further interference,
let be.

Grasses go wild,
grow tall, bloom in countless forms, swallow everything,
right now.

Caterpillars, crickets, grasshoppers,
dragonflies, lizards, butterflies, lightning bugs, bats,
ever more.

Birds I slowly learn to know:
who appears when, who sits where, who calls how,
their peculiarities.

Plants become personalities,
tough, tender, slow, fast, willful, elusive,
fiercely alive.

Traces of larger animals,
secretly left in the darkness. A hedgehog comes,
and stays.

Struggle and death belong here too,
slowworms torn apart, bloodied feathers, ravaged carcasses,
seemingly senseless.

Decay brings forth new life,
everything flows into everything else, nothing remains alone,
without end.

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