The Progress Poem by Jay Mandeville

I've slept damp in the greenhouse,
for ages outsourced,
the gladiolus alive in my veins,
while Time's bounded joists
nurtured ghostly snares
that entwined every thought
I envisioned there.

Dragged out in the light,
wrung and flung, soaking-wet,
into the world of human demands,
I emerge from dreaming
too long in the shade
of mischance dealt by
moss-stained,5-card hands.

Outside, though, I'm fine,
a gardener Occidental,
with dandiprat face, clay-like
and impersonal,
that seasons have browned
like a wind-worn sundial.

And because the forenoon
is forever and final,
the unending planted rows
twist tight and tango,
bursting through topsoil
I've drawn with colored pencil.

But soon the fragrance of
colder doves will stand in trees
to mischief my ear,
cooing from tangled brush,
patchoulied and brittle,
the gaunt song
of season gone, season done...

So must Lord Virus lie fallow, retry,
and for the carolling year retool.
With microscoped care,
his unyielding hordes
may usher me straight back
to gardening school.



Note: A dandiprat is a person of multiple insignificance.