Safe Haven

Storm clouds loom over our scarlet cradle
- the feelings, the dreams, and the roads.
The distressed air knows its own battles;
stubborn and wild, it unleashes its might.

Birds perch on in abandoned, broken attics,
fraught with fear or coldness or hunger.
Never to leave until the tempest dies;
never to fly until the sun comes up.

Heavy, pounded, and loud, earth is soggy,
an incurable wound for hours,
or an infant enduring its complex wailing.
Souls wander not on a lark.

The night breaks its ribcage;
streaks of light unfold before your eyes,
pacing as a patient soldier.
And warm hands hold you tight.

Hardin sa Mang-uuma (A Farmer's Garden)

Your garden, peppered with your magical touch,
lies under capricious heavens and over silent, deep riverbeds.
It awaits the season of bloom, which cries of defaulted joy.
It is as patient as a vagrant crossing treeless lands, lost and parched and yellow.
It is, after all, a child without tantrums.

When it survives, you are the proud father.
When it grows, green and strong, you have found a pearl.
It wins every taste bud.
You can make yourself breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
It is selfless and giving.
Your garden, after all, is a forest, a nature with lungs.