When I finally learned to leave,

I was always saying goodbye.

When I finally learned to say goodbye,

I was always leaving.

Goodbyes seem to be my speciality.

How do I do it, just up and leave people

I’ve come to know and cherish?

However, I say,

if I hadn’t left the first ones,

I’d have never met the other ones,

I said goodbye to.

Wasn’t it Shakespeare who penned something

about it being better to have loved and lost than to have

never loved at all?

And I love you all.

These gardens speak deeply to my soul. I search through them like a lover exploring, time and time again, never tiring, their spaces, hidden and obvious, wanting to devour them. Many personalities lie inside and change slightly so that one day they are bright and welcoming when, tomorrow, they won’t shine, shying away while begging against intrusion of any kind. Except for the birds, she loves her birds. They are so lucky to fly in and out of my love’s underbelly knowing every crook, each pool of gathered water, all branches of berries. They taunt me, you know, flying all around me but never letting me fully view them and their plumage, darting through the bramble, blending in too well, and landing, always, in the shadows. The cardinal, so red and contrasting, denies me, purposefully I think, her full, clear view. I tell her how important a picture is for the folks back west but she won’t have it despite my insistence that we adore her beauty. She moves even quicker to the shade when my camera is focuses so now I possess dozens of blurred photos of what I know is a sweet vixen of crimson. I’ve given up on her but she still teases me when I walk through the bog despite my pretending not to care.

I watch the families and the tourists walk through, mouths gaping at the greenery so artfully grown. I smile a secret smile to them that they assume is friendliness but is really my silent boast that I know every breath the garden makes, where each path takes and that they can never know her without true commitment to her. Mornings, afternoons and evenings: you must sacrifice blocks of time to truly understand how she stirs each moment of the day, none the same and even the next day different due to light, weather and mood of visitor. We humans add energy to her, transforming her, sometimes against her will, and fueling emotions in all. We can turn her into a welcoming beauty or a secretive seductress while other times she can be the sweet virgin of sunshine or the cold, wintry bitch. I’ve seen them all and other ones I refuse to tell you about. There have been times when hardly a soul has entered and she breathed deeply and calmly while times the hordes descended and she screamed for everyone to leave her the hell alone. But they didn’t, no, they kept prying, and taking, and expecting and wanting from her not respecting everything she has done and how long she has done it. I apologize as I chide all but I know there are many who walk these green pew paths through religious trees over sacred fallen leaves listening to the sermon of the breeze while kneeling for the earthly sacrament. My fellow faithful, you are truly part of the garden congregation.

For the rest, I hope that you understand the love and time that lies in here, lies in her, and that you come with reverence. When you finally leave through the wrought iron gates, turn back to her and smile and say, quietly please, thank you beautiful lady for touching my soul like a lover never will.

Old Cahaba road

creeps between the garden and the zoo.

Ill lit except for the grand entrances

halfway down the road, like a beacon,

but it’s pitch black until and after.

My little flashlight is dull against the dark

and my eyes unable to define elevation changes

between the flagstones that are pushed up

by thirsty willows and runaway oaks.

I’m sure to trip and fall, alone, on dark Cahaba road

where I would feel the cold cement against my hands

and a thousand eyes on me

but it’s only my imagination

because no one is there?

I keep my quick pace except for a spin or two

to look behind and up

as the mighty trees’ overreaching canopies

drop nut and acorn to the street.

Not at me? (I have my suspicions)

Oh, the creaks and groans from inside the garden gates,

how loud the sound of a solitary leaf falling

from its limb!

The sounds follow me down Cahaba road.

Maybe a spirit follows me,

not a malcontent,

but an old friend making sure I arrive safely home.

Squaw, leathery crow of a woman, I see you eyeing me. Is that humor in your smile? Or are you chanting a hate song towards me, your chosen martyr of the white man. It’s not my fault, I swear. Not even my ma’s as she grew up in the automobile times. You were all on the res by then, right? And before my granddad as he grew up in Chicago during the industrial times. You all were out west then I believe, fighting the US Army.I smile at you hoping for reconciliation. I smile as a  sign of respect, I plead you. Believe me, we all know what we’ve done. Lies, genocide...Trail of Tears.  I know it all as I’ve read the books and seen the movies. Dustin Hoffman as Little Big Man and Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. If I want more information I have Wikipedia. Your all nations people now and we hear you and repost Facebook posts on your behalf. Sorry though, North Dakota is too far to travel in a weekend and I’m all out of vacation time at work.