Dead Garden

I have walked through this garden
most desolate and glutted
by ravenous weeds of gray
long dead and lain over on themselves.
I have tread carefully in earnest search
for a single sprout of growth,
a single sliver of hope.
I have scattered seeds,
taking care to water them,
and hoped with the rising sun
that I would find something beginning to grow.

I pray over the garden.
It is our marriage
and the foundation of our life together
as parents for our children.
It is as desert sands in summer
and frozen wastes in winter.
The only hope I find is within myself
and in the whispered cries of our children
chanting through the withered vines
that choke this plundered earth.