New Garden

Different Garden, Same Old Ache

By Abigail Taylor (aka haikupunk)

I wrote this poem at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, when I had just moved houses. I spent a lot of that spring in the big backyard. I had started meditating (there was nothing else to do), and there was this small stone Mother Mary at the back of the yard, up on a slight hill beneath the shade of the trees. I’d stare at her for long periods of time.

The photo I paired with this poem is from my recent trip to Ireland. I’m not even sure if the statue in the photo is supposed to be Mary, but she reminded me immediately of the little statue in my backyard. And on a misty spring day at a sprawling Benedictine monastery, I sat and stared at her for a while, too.

When I thought about posting this poem and pairing it with this photo, I got curious about whether all the plants and creatures I mention could be found in both places. As it turns out, most of them can. The one distinction is the flowering dogwood, native to this part of Western North Carolina.

I like that the poem and photograph connect these two places for me, six years apart. In both, I was a stranger in a place that somehow felt familiar, carrying the same deep ache for belonging.

I’ve been sifting through a lot of old poems lately, and I’m continually struck by how cyclical the themes of my life are. The poems become a kind of map through time. The wheel keeps turning, and each spring I seem to meet some version of the same old ache, but from a different place on the wheel. I can see how I’ve learned, little by little, to offer myself the belonging I was in search of. And I can see how I’ve learned to trust the belonging my friends have offered me.

New Garden

Little Grey Bunny, friendly but vigilant,
keeps one obsidian marble eye on me
as she bites off, and slowly chews
the tops of Dutch clover like cake pops.
Lone Love Bird, no bigger than an egg—
fills his tiny little chest with spring air,
opens his needle beak, and sings loudly to her,
a confident tenor—from a dogwood branch
(a little off key but with a whole lot of heart).
Bumblebee Twins bump to their own rhythms—
side to side, flower to flower, nectar to nectar—
buzzing about a pollen-dusted bustling city.
Weather-worn Mother Mary, stone hands open,
towers over the rest warmly, keeping watch—
silent, accepting—embodying the Wu Wei.
I sit in tired lotus on a cracked steppingstone,
mended over time by chickweed and broadleaf—
almost as still as the saint, in humble adoration.
An attempt to let everyone here know that I—
a weary and lonely newcomer—come in peace,
and maybe, one day, we could all be friends.