(Untitled Original by Conrad Siever)
Not in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit—
There where along the shaded walks
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls—
But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and flesh of the tree,
And into the living epitaphs
Of redder apples!
“Not In That Wasted Garden”
Into the earth I dug, a shallow scrape:
Interred in living waste no flesh nor bone,
But that about which words are not well chosen;
Buried the matter and soon forgot
The sightless, lightless diggers,
Archeologists of current time
Whose questing threads unearth
From secret stores
Resins of exotic gum and oil,
And from the remnant of the rot
Astringent extracts in painted vessels,
Flung strands of spun silver,
And as from the loom freshly rolled
Purple raiment of intricate fold;
Discovered treasures like gifts of the crafty east
Fleeting as a hoard from a tomb
And untold.
This One & This One 