After Long Years


After long years, the words still come.
Pages are filled, manuscripts sent out.
Books appear and are met with silence. 
Wasn't this always the way?

When spring comes, the soil in the yard
Needs to be turned. Seeds must be planted;
Fruit trees, vines and bushes tended.
These growing things mean more.
They always should have.

That's where life is. In green leaves,
Lengthening stems, flowers budding,
Before bee magic turns them into
Tomatoes, peppers, long beans.

The children mean more than the garden. 
They always did. They always will.
So much more than words
Or dreams that fuel the writing.

How strange this compulsion
To scribble and type. It must be
Some kind of allergy
That bothers a soul all year round.

I didn't ask for it. It came to me.
Part of the baggage of life,
Rotting fruit from my childhood. 
I could have done well without.

Friends, wife, the little ones,
Before they grew up and went away,
That was all I needed but did not know it.

The garden now fills in for what was lost.
Life is all there is, all that ever matters.
The words must learn to understand,
Since they won't go away,

That what little is left is not for them. 
It is for others and what can rise
From cold winter mud after longer days return.