Who Will Water My Garden by David Rojas

You wake up early mornings to pray for afternoon

rains, the television static of cloud kissing earth

makes for an un-sad musical accompaniment

to your tea time soliloquies.

Trees and vines make for great listeners, and for a little water,

they'll take your petty secrets and bloom hope as seedless fruit.

Flowers should be cajoled, and you reassure them constantly

that you've chosen to look at life as if photosynthesis were indeed some miracle,

and together, you worship each dying sun.

Some flowers grow in bunches, but lately,

you've been into planting orchids.

You hold solitude tender and profound like a flower un-bloomed;

still, in your garden melancholy lurks as a color, fleeting

and unforgotten, between green nooks, behind brown eyes.

Before you know it, climbing vines become hanging plants

and you must pull the weeds from the necks of your flowers.

Sometimes, you turn up the volume on the AM

radio until the resonance of human vocal cords vibrate

your ears to the brim, until the breath between words, is so tangible

that it spills over and quenches some inner thirst for human touch.

And despite your hopes and prayers for rain tonight, you ask the skies:

who will water my garden when I die?

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The Author

David Rojas was born in Colombia and grew up in the United States. Presently he is learning how to reside at the moment. In previous incarnations, he dabbled in engineering and management in the state of Florida. For the last two years, he has been traveling; he can currently be found in Jaipur, India eating samosas for fun. He types words sometimes, too.

David Rojas