"Maniac, maniac on the floor"

Interestingly, we personify parallel lines....

(thanks to your curly thoughts)

A Garden Nobody Inherited

Forces out of reach shut every way,

self-effort multiplied day after day.

One try became ten, ten opened twenty more,

with no return beyond the door.

The lack of nourishment tortures the mind,

growth starved of what it was meant to find.

Effort upon effort, hunger beneath the skin,

a field worked hard with nothing fed in.

They saw the orchard from the road

and guessed the fruit came free;

no one asked what winter owed

the roots beneath the tree.

A late seed broke a stubborn ground,

long after spring had fled;

the birds called luck from all around,

the soil knew what it bled.

Two crooked branches shared one rain,

each bending its own way;

the intrusive came and came again,

then wondered why they’d stay.

Some loved the shade, some eyed the yield,

some reached before it grew;

a fence went up around the field

when gentler signs fell through.

There are hands that give past sense,

as though the well won’t dry;

there are hands that learn a fence

after asking too long why.

One season watched the others bloom

from somewhere past the hill;

its own green slept beneath the gloom,

alive, though hidden still.

The years were unsettling for tender shoots,

the weather rough with change;

some trees grew tall on borrowed routes,

some learned the dark was strange.

Yet one old trunk was lightning near,

with earth beneath its feet;

it lost a branch, survived the year,

and never learned deceit.

Beside it grew a serene tree

from weather of its own,

the sort that knows what storms can be

and how to stand alone.

No golden orchard. No easy spring.

No crown above the gate.

Only roots that worked at everything

and fruit that ripened late.

So if you see the garden glow

and call the sunlight luck,

come spend a season down below

where every root was struck.

P.S.

It's your day today:

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