Act 4 

Is it beginning to unfold?

There is such a long way to go

for years, I could not speak their language.

And so they spoke mine

The vinedresser, yes, he is the one who made it so

You have not seen him here?

Oh , never you mind

we will meet him in good time

But not yet.

There are witnesses, you see

Yes, these strong sentinels stand as witnesses to the thorns and briars that tossed their caustic rhetoric

among tenderlings

whose very leaves and veinules were so carefully maintained

to bear the tri quatrain fruit of my Tender’s fame.

That was when the hands of sustenance

Were training up new lines of thought in the way they should go

grafting

pruning…

all so gentle and eloquent;

I did not see it then.

Such a pity…

But they did.  The trees saw these seedlings

change, as the turning of the leaves -

I who watered with swill and swallowed, allowing the hate-speech to have its way in the undergrowth;

I broke the tenant farmers’ hearts

Their elocution meant for mighty oaks

washed away like so much fertilizer.

They stood back and saw instead the burrs and nightshade poison flowing freely

from my intermittent pen  

Act 2

The wind…let it take you.

Now mind your step.

It’s harder to see a garden, but we can still make it out

Look carefully

branches lancing toward tortured skies, roots running into earth I hadn’t watered in ages.

And wind now weaves softly through them.  

They stand.

immovable.  

true.

Just as they do to this day

But there were less then.

And the tenant farmers have all changed since.

You see, I always knew these trees were set here long before tenant’s hands

ran over strong branches

in gratitude

for sentences that grew so deep from seed,

keeping their own council,

unless sharing with those who bore the burden of their tending.

The tenders knew better than I what secrets they held

                The poems they wrote for me…

When the epochs that taught me in their growth rings looked on

 – they do even still, you know -

Their progeny walked the carefully crafted pathways

of their commas

and their paragraphs

largely unaware of their significance. 

I'm actually listening to a song called Sealion Woman.  I thought she could use a story. And a few plays on words. Google the lyrics and it'll make more sense. 

She a hard woman

see her lyin'

she make her home way down yonder

some go see her for they problems

she not one for walkin

some come home

she have some kin' o reputation

some drink her coffee

she a gambler

some lose they ever'thin

she don't sleep none

some find her good comp'ny

her rooster don't lie

some see her for her trouble

She sang a low kin' o blues

some folk be her trouble

she a hard woman

C-line woman