I have laid lilies at your door, close your eyes and smell them; there is nothing pretentious about them.

There is no bill enclosed in the greeting card nor needle tucked between  the stems. It has been a gesture of love, simple things that grow
like moss on rocks and pearls in oysters

I have laid them gently, made a horticulturist of myself

I have worn big hats and ventured into my own fields
to snip the loviest of the bunch –and in my basket I always gather for two.

One for my kitchen table and the other one for you

The Gardener’s Roses
by Michael R. Burch

Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”

I too have come to the cave;
within: strange, half-glimpsed forms
and ghostly paradigms of things.
Here, nothing warms

this lightening moment of the dawn,
pale tendrils spreading east.
And I, of all who followed Him,
by far the least . . .

The women take no note of me;
I do not recognize
the men in white, the gardener,
these unfamiliar skies . . .

Faint scent of roses, then—a touch!
I turn, and I see: You.
My Lord, why do You tarry here:
Another waits, Whose love is true?

Although My Father waits, and bliss;
though angels call—ecstatic crew!—
I gathered roses for a Friend.
I waited here, for You.

NOTE: I do not believe in Jesus as a “sacrifice” to a primitive “god” who demands the blood of innocents in order to “forgive” sins of his own making through a ghoulish "atonement." But I will not completely discount the hope that love can transcend death, although, like Thomas, I will have to see it to believe it. Keywords/Tags: Jesus, Christ, cave, grave, tomb, gardener, roses, angels, resurrection, Mary, Magdalene, love, heaven

The gardener from thee-
a meager seed and humble need
a leaf within his reach
The spell enclosed,
apricot and peach.
Pineapple in bloom
No rose
No jessamine
Symbols of all interposed
With a flower so sweet,
like a blue eye
the gardener sighs.

"this Plant, is not mine."

focused praying mantis still as a stick
clueless prey three times its size-
best friend of gardeners

A gravekeeper by trade
burying the dead to stay alive
with a green thumb and *****
the unused earth oh how it strives!

Fat tubers and roots
green leaves with red veins
small vines sprouting fruits
even a small section for grains

The gravekeeper never goes hungry
his family never starves
he loves living in the country
and his plot of earth that he carves

One day two fresh dead
and a rat, maybe two scampered by
soon a sickness to be widespread
day by day how that multiplied!

More bodies into the earth
how did his garden shrink
he was crying and crying
this gravekeeper didn't know what to think!

Should he be happy for business
should he be sad for the loss
is he crying for his vegetables
or is he crying for the bodies that are tossed

Little by little did the green become stone
his loved ones feast on a diet of worms
now he, a lonely gardener of bones
sits and watches as his world burns

I don't know how much more
I can find trust ignoring the lore
That I keep on writing til my fingers are sore

This strange heavy book
with an even stranger look
that a stranger once took

I want to think
that it is full of insightful ink
giving me good reasons to always stay close to the brink

But when my heart grows fonder
today when I catch myself, ponder
my mind only recklessly starts to wonder

And I've been reckless before
my heart and soul given to a false poet who calls me a *****
it tinted my deepest thoughts, it might be blue forevermore

I'm an expert on overthinking
still can't help but drinking
Wonderland's poisons up til I'm shrinking

If I could only say
that on some distant day
I'd learned my lesson not to pray

For you can never know
maybe it's only the gardener, just a poet for show
beware of what he might sow