The Garden

                "There awaits us after we are dead things which we do not expect or imagine."
                     —Heraclitus

Fall's last light in the last field falls now—
A yellow butterfly. A yellow leaf . . .
Nothing we haven't lost before. In the Garden

Our son speaks of the death he was born from, That distant
galaxy he knows as God—To his friend,
He whispers: I am a messenger of God, are you?

You laugh: So maybe this is it—the aftermath.
Your spade shivers as it bites the earth,
And the two boys scramble for the night's potatoes.

In the west, wandering, Venus fires its brief ascent:
A yellow butterfly. A yellow leaf . . .
Nothing we haven't found before.

Copyright © 2003 David Daniel All rights reserved
from The Literary Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission