” Let me give the world a gift. More incorruptible than love.”

                                                                  Anna Akhmatova 
 
 
Oh Anna, don’t you know
the garden is just small pieces 
of the forest? Everything grows. 
What you feed only releases
thickens, lingers much longer.
Stronger, even than poetry.
  
  
Oh Anna, who taught you to sew those
rhymes into the cross stitched years?
How, in the delicate white linen throw
of form do you make them disappear
like scent in that light dappled glow 
puddled under wild blade and bloom?
 
Did you know when they would reappear 
in the craters made by falling bombs?
Like lotus rising in the footprints of God.
 
Oh Anna and how do you lead
the world around your garden
gates so that we don’t leave
 
our muddy boots at your door?
Oh my Anna, your incorruptible gift 
is recieved. May I place it here,
pressed between these pages?
A small thing not unlike a flower
or two hands clasped in a wooded shade.