| STELLA'S GARDEN These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, wax dim. Shakespeare, Henry VI Now somebody stand up, one of you teachers or priests, and tell us about the heaven of dogs, how they go joyously barking, beyond the powers of this present air. And in the yard where my Stella loves to run, one tree eloquently offers oranges, as cherry guavas glisten and we are all alive. That tree will not mourn, nor do the bushes dream of a coming loss, so let this place absorb my grief in the consolation of hummingbirds. Where do good dogs go? Don't tell me they're waiting, searching for their masters in some lonesome spirit world, until they hear us call them home again. There must be a happy, sunny beach, with little waves singing or a warm field beyond the terrors of traffic, where biscuits flow from the hand of Grace. Now in Stella's garden, the single dove is splashing in her concrete bath, the fragile ficus leans sadly into forever again, as the implacable darkness falls. Kyle Kimberlin |
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