To My

Victorian Garden

I am the sum of brilliant August afternoons
In the vegetable patch, digging ants nests out
Of carrot beds with fingernails caked in earth,
At the south bound of my Victorian garden.

Running barefoot and open mouthed through
Columns of gnats drifting on warm updrafts across
Vast carpets of velvet grass to the walnut
And cherry, and pear, and apple tree, where green
Tart worm-heart apples turned orange as the
Tanned skins of wild children in the sun.

In the rain-shadow heat,
The grapes and roses spilled down over themselves
Creating cool moist caves, in their interwoven tendrils
For me to nap in, with face buried in dusty cats' bellies.
Waking to run away the afternoon
Chasing grasshoppers and crickets,
And stars in the evenings.

Apricots and peaches and gooseberries filled my stomach.
Honey suckle nectar and earwigs from the
Red trumpets that climbed the lattices of the porch quenched my thirst.
Mulberries crushed to a cool jam beneath my feet and nourished the
Grass-shoot weeds to gnaw. 
With hair full of burs and seeds of
Wild black berries peppered with aphids, I ran in the  evening dew against the winds that rushed from the Columbia
Bringing the scent of watered lawns and wet
Cement where pill bugs secreted themselves in cracks.

If there is a Heaven, it is to be aware that you are alive
In a Victorian garden of your own,
And to dance in sun dapples beneath shifting boughs
On beds of berries, with the scent of soil, grass rubs,
Crabapple stains, and raspberry thorns
Clinging in your clothes. Innocent and wild with simply living.

By Amethyst O'Brien 

Midi is "Blossoms"
by soozi