Growing Things by Terry Anderson

Growing Things

I dream of growing things,
not in meticulously ordered gardens,
but in abandoned wild profusion.
I think of cutting fallen trees
for firewood with an axe;
cleaning a small, leaf-choked
stream, and watching water
running clear and free again.

I think of all the small, wild creatures
I hunted as a boy and shake my head.
Too many wars, mine and others,
have left me unable to see
any gun without recalling
men's, women's, children's faces,
and the sweetly horrifying
smell of bodies in the sun.

I long for life so fiercely,
and I wake to chains.

by Terry Anderson

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