The bare garden in spring always
feels like a stranger’s.        Like the last

sentence in a book.          Its path circles
ground I have tended each season

of my life.                    Have I only dreamed
that I know how things grow?        Then

the dreams were seeds.          Then the seeds
were stars.          Once this plot was entirely

rubble and thirst.          Now I cultivate a heaven
everyone will water.           The last sentence

in one book and the first sentence in
another are two of countless rows.

I write my path walking.          All this future
blossoming illuminates the way.

–for Deborah Keenan, at her retirement