Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux’s poem Instead of Writing Poems appeared here in February 2014.

Let Grief Pour Out of You as if You Are Watering a Garden
By Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux

Let grief pour out of you
as if you are watering a garden,
slowly with the force of the glaciers
behind you.

On these hard days
allow yourself to imagine the flowers:
dahlias & tiger lilies, poppies &
elegant peonies, slender-stalked
columbine, blue delphinium
wild black-eyed susan, fat
hollyhocks, climbing high.
This will be a garden of your own,
growing the seeds of the dreams
in your belly, the turned up
earth of your hardship, tilled
over & over, hard lumps broken
between your fingers until
you become the hospitable earth:
You are all these plants require.

Let grief pour out of you
as if you are the watering can,
large, drum-like vessel, ancient
as your grandmother
who worked the earth of her
soul just like this, who turned
up the dark loam, who feared
all had died in the long winters
but who kept on anyway.
This is a garden for all people,
not just you. When you have wept
& laid down to rest by the
edge of the ferns & marigolds,
your garden will bloom. Slowly,
first, in small stalks & tight
buds. When you awake
there will be a riot of flowers & you
will water the good earth again.