Relevant Realities

That patch of earth I think I know so well
where I garden mostly still and mostly silent

In my stillness and my silence, I notice details
hues of petals, bend of foliage, feel of damp, dark dirt

Purple, green, and brown, I attend to with a focus
while my little ones play games outside nearby

My children play nearby as I work my garden
hopping over shadows, ringing trees in their games

In their shadow play and games of hugging trees,
they see a different yard than what I see

This novel yard is one of many viewpoints
seen through giggles and running spirals as they play

Their giggling, running view attends another focus than
that patch of earth I think I know so well

The Day Twenty-seven prompt is to write a “duplex” variation of a sonnet. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has fourteen lines. It’s organized into seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.

This poem was inspired by a piece in The Marginalian called “The Art of Looking: Eleven Ways of Viewing the Multiple Realities of Our Everyday Wonderland”.

Photo was taken long ago of the iris garden in our front yard in Troy, MI.

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