The Garden

 

 I tended to my garden.
I walked among the weeds.
I noticed how entangled
everything had grown.

I wanted to be angry, 
to find someone to blame.
But I knew this messy garden
was only mine to own.

Strangling vines had taken over
light had been kept out,
thorny plants with shallow roots
had found their way within. 

I had chosen to neglect
this once beautiful space.
And now this garden called to me.
But where would I begin?

The surface mess,
the shallow weeds
that hadn't been there long 

I pulled out quick,
reminding them
that they did not belong.

But vines that grew around the trunks
of my favourite tree
seemed to strangle everything,
I felt they strangled me!

So I took a deep, long breath,
and got right back to work
to retrieve the life within
and set everything free.

Sleeves rolled up and boots pulled on,
I jumped into the mess.
I'd get dirty nonetheless,
with dirt beneath my nails.

And I learned that many things
that I had once been scared of
helped to feed my garden soil:
the spiders, worms and snails.

With dirt flying up and over me,
covered from head to toe,
from ev'ry root of ev'ry weed
that I now tossed aside,

I saw that I can be both things:
the garden and the gardener.
I unearthed this hidden gem,  
this truth buried inside:

In among the tangles,
the thorns and the brambles
I found a deep red rose
who had planted herself there.

She had made her space,
grown in thick of darkness,
nourished by the rain,
and her own loving care.

Every garden has a treasure,
beauty grown within.
Sometimes it sits for many years
buried deep underground

until we dig and do the work
with dirt upon our hands.
The treasure that we seek
is just waiting to be found.