Emily Wall

Navigating Faith Manuscript

Email: em@emily-wall.com

God Gardening

 

 

Maybe one of God’s

favorite jobs

is gardening.

 

On an early

August morning

he goes out

to his Yukon garden,

runs his fingers along the tops

of pines, picks a dead tree

or two— there and there—

lets them fall.

 

Checks the owl’s burrow

in the Southeast corner,

admires the fireweed,

though he knows the deer

will eat them later.

 

Checks the dampness

of the soil, his fingertips

pushing into cool earth,

dirt his body

will never return to.

Does he feel this

separation in his skin?

 

Or does he remember

the day this landscape

unfolded under his hand,

a perfect map

of his imagination unfurling?

 

 But how he must

love the sweet smell

of the rained-on earth—

the small changes

he sees daily,

and the way it carries on,

absolutely faithful,

without being asked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This poem first appeared in the journals Radix and Cresset.  ©Emily Wall 2005.