I dream you closer too (sex is our only spiritual ascension)

 you wilder than michelangelo’s david/you air's purr/you living currency/you dead pasts/you a stick of incense/you a stick-up artist/you haraami/you the hum of a lifetime basined in my lap/count our tallies of loss backward for me/run to the bank & translate it into a fistful of green of your choice/or something else sanctified/or european/pick the synonym of your choice.

in a traditional sense/the body holds its arithmetic/exports it outward/to the touch and exhale/the praxis felt best/against a groan of couch/with the smart weight of a hand against the small of a back/here, sex is our only spiritual ascension/can i be excused from living so boldly and slimly at the same time?

i dream you closer too/beside the honey-colored dog licking its vulva/a concrete laugh flying out of your throat/ask me about blood clots and crescent moons/the cracked skin of heels/anything but the nightly heartbreaks of/too many addresses/and all the ways/i am still auditioning/for this country’s approval.

Rather unfaithfully Momtaza Mehri's Small Talk

Still I will harvest beauty where it grows

Her the inhabiter of diverse places
Surmising at all doors, I push them all.
Oh, you that fearful of a creaking hinge
Turn back forevermore with craven faces,
I tell you Beauty bears an ultra fringe
Unguessed of you upon her gossamer shawl!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The way a gardener would shape a garden

So you, as an artist, can manipulate time and move things around, you cut and shape the way a gardener would shape a garden, so that you can see certain flowers and pay attention to certain plants, otherwise it’s just a jungle. And it’s the writer’s job to cut away and prune and shape and make order from that jungle so that you can pay attention and see certain colors and patterns.

-Sandra Cisneros

 

The Gardener VIII - Myrtle

The gardener takes me into his garden. He lets me recognize the names of his plants, and tells me the names of those I don't know of when I ask him. He says I can have all the bits of earth I want, to plant seeds in, to make things grow; he offers them even when unasked for.

The gardener compares me to the shapes and colors of flowers. He finds their scent and mine are the same.

The gardener knows the right remedy, and places it under my pillow.

When I wake up, I find freshly cut chamomile and marigold on the night table.

The Gardener VII - The Queen's Gardener (or, Mary chooses Dickon)

"I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain or shine," he answered stoutly. "It's the best fun I ever had in my life—shut in here an' wakenin' up a garden."
- The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

He befriends the butterflies in the garden. They pose for him in different flowers while he paints portraits of them. He said all he had to do was ask.

He asks me about the moon. I tell him no one ever asks me about the moon. He wonders how come no one has ever loved me that much. I wonder along with him. But then I hear him calling me Moon, and the question looses importance.

He complains about the plants not being watered properly, and cares for them generously: he becomes the rain after which flowers blossom and fruit grows. Under his care the land is healed.

The Gardener VI - Lluvia

Las flores se encienden
y alegres se abren
al beso del agua,
como manantiales.

Llueve y llueve esta tarde.


Fragmentos de "Llueve", de Juan Ramón Barat, en Poemas para gorriones.

The Gardener V - Humble and grateful

I think the true gardener is a lover of his flowers, not a critic of them. I think the true gardener is the reverent servant of Nature, not her truculent, wife-beating master. I think the true gardener, the older he grows, should more and more develop a humble, grateful and uncertain spirit. 

Reginald Farrer, In a Yorkshire Garden, 1909

The Gardener IV - Heaven shall be here

- And what protection can the gardener afford this rose from the harsh elements of change?

- Under nature's eye all roses may bloom, althoug the elements may treat us cruely. Patience, care, and a little warmth from the sun are our best hope, your majesty.

Dialogue from the movie A little chaos.

The Gardener III - It's as alive as you or me

Dickon: The robin says he's been waiting for you. The animals tell me all their secrets.

Mary: He wouldn't tell you my secret, would he?

Dickon: About what Miss Mary?

Mary: A garden. I've stolen a garden. Maybe it's dead anyhow. I don't know.

Dickon: I'd know.

Mary: Promise you won't tell.

Dickon: Promise.

Mary: Nobody?

Dickon: Not a soul.

Mary: I'ts a secret garden.

Dickon: Secrets are safe with me.

Mary: And you'll really know if it's alive?

Dickon: 'Course!

Mary: Wait here.

Dickon: This garden's not dead. I'ts as alive as you or me. See? This part's wick. See the green!

Mary: Wick? What's wick?

Dickon: Alive. Full of live. There'll be so many roses in here this summer. You'll be sick of them.


Dialogue from the movie The Secret Garden, directed by Agnieszka Holland.

The Gardener II - Eden and Chaos

- Is this abundance of chaos... is this your Eden?

- My search for it.

Dialogue from the movie A Little Chaos, directed by Alan Rickman. 

The Gardener I - To hold your little fists like tender lotus-buds

Servant: Have mercy upon your servant, my queen!

Queen: The assembly is over and my servants are all gone. Why do you come at this late hour?

Servant: When you have finished with the others, that is my time. I come to ask what remains for your last servant to do. 

Queen: What can you expect when it is too late?

Servant: Make me the gardener of your flower garden.

Queen: What folly is this?

Servant: I will give up my other work. I throw my swords and lances down in the dust. Do not send me to distant courts; do not bid me undertake new conquests. But make me the gardener of your flower garden.

Queen: What will your duties be?

Servant: The service of your idle days. I will keep fresh the grassy path where you walk in the morning, where your feet will be greeted with praise at every step by the flowers eager for death. I will swing you in a swing among the branches of the saptaparna, where the early evening moon will struggle to kiss your skirt through the leaves. I will replenish with scented oil the lamp that burns by your bedside, and decorate your footstool with sandal and saffron paste in wondrous designs.

Queen: What will you have for your reward?

Servant: To be allowed to hold your little fists like tender lotus-buds and slip flower chains over your wrists; to tinge the soles of your feet with the red juice of ashoka petals and kiss away the speck of dust that may chance to linger there.

Queen: Your prayers will be granted, my servant, you will be the gardener of my flower garden.

Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener, Poem I.