Eden, Endangered

you pass beautiful leaf-blown lawns
and the imagined then actual garden 
with reeds adrift in holy aqueduct 
Barstow Palmdale Cassiopeia under Interstate 15
whose calm water in stillness attends 
with gathering sweetness
contaminant run-off
in the Jesus-Saints aqueduct sluice-ways and canals
agricultural waste products
where love pours, I now realize
I was wrong, love pours 
and burns, love sets us
alight no one
untouched

Meredith Stricker | If I Get Lost >>
Contents | Mudlark No. 54  (2014)