edited 8-20-2013
Nightmare Gardens
A grumpy
demon of the forest haunted
the old root
cellar that was beyond the bell vine,
near the old
out-house made of wood
to which
paint could not stick,
and fell in
flayed strips in summer;
where the
flowers swooned and paled,
and mildew
spread its suffocating powder carpet,
below the
bloat of bully and sullen bees
and
yellow-jackets, both prisoners
of their
poverty and religion :
being hard shell Anabaptists
and missionaries,
whose
uppermost apparel, coarse saffron striped,
no silk,
satin, chamblet, nor taffeta in their gowns…
tired
doublets and jerkins of their faith,
their
stingers of certain disorders villainous -
evil and
malicious against man’s presence;
embittered
snakes that crawl along the garden,
see me and
interrogate: God save you, noble sir!
What are the
secret whisperings? The grumblings
of the voles
and slanders of the mice…
Is the old
man gone?
I shouted:
Hieroglyphic
animal!
Viper of old
times!
Embosomed
while envenomed in His very garden!
Serpent
author of the books…
divided into
four parts…
first, bees and
wasps, and those that part the thorax;
then corn, wheat,
barley, and ploughing;
Osiris’
tail-bone the third book,
and
viticulture the last!
Begone! I
cried, as I threw my staff at them.
And I sat
down and wept,
weeping long for the past,
when demons hid grey among the ruins,
unseen in their weeds,
where the great marquees of vines
support the dark and sunless day,
creating baleful shadows in the deep recesses!
--
notes
"unseen in their weeds" - the old expression "weeds" meaning "clothes"
This may be my father's garden, little attended since his demise, or it may be Eden after the Fall. I have always thought a demon inhabited the root cellar, and grew thin and taut until it could feast on blood or some near-blood items.
It used to frighten me, until I realized how much a prisoner it was, and how obsessed with a paltry existence it was.
