Unearthed

Cluster of green leaves, green stem,
white tapering root with black dirt clinging
to the hairs that line the
naked dangling organ of sustenance
and support.

Pitiful.
And I feel satisfied that the root came
up intact. That weed won't regrow.
Or propagate. Or flower. Or seed.

I toss it on the pile
of huge Queen Anne's lace, each
of those also intact, white seed heads to
white root tips.

White, to some, the color of death.
And me the reaper,
sending living, thriving, misplaced
plants to compost.

I shape my garden wordlessly.

Ignoring what
is there to see,
my mind surges forward
to the metaphor:

I yank dream images into
consciousness,
put words on them, write
the words, subjectively,
imperfectly, killing
their life as images.

Then I examine the words
I've used, make associations,
interpretations, subjectively.

And try to communicate
what I think I've learned
back to the unconscious mind
with a ritual act —
symbolic, single, silent,
an experience I manufacture
mentally or
wordlessly divine
to seal the lesson,
to feel my truth.

Honoring conscious mind,
its capacity to describe,
analyze, conclude,
while it changes, diminishes,
transforms feeling to a
thing.
Honoring unconscious mind
with a return image in the ritual act.

Just as plants decompose
to feed some unknown new growth,
at some unknown time,
in an unknown place.