The garden admires you.
For your sake it smears itself with green pigment,
The ecstatic reds of the roses,
So that you will come to it with your lovers.

And the willows--
See how it has shaped these green
Tents of silence. Yet
There is still something you need,
Your body so soft, so alive, among the stone animals.

Admit that it is terrible to be like them,
Beyond harm.

Trying to create just a moment of silence
Pure enough to hear my thoughts

But I can't stop the wind
Or my heart beat
Not yet

Its a compromise
To listen to the anxious whirring of my breath
The only constant
But I don't count on it at all

Its just like you said
I wish we had taped it
Like frosting over with a photograph