These days I work the garden—pulling up the old, turning the soil for the new. This keeps my ghost in prosperity—a bright exhaustion; bright yet unsensational. Parsley & tomatoes & peppers to inquire into the silence that inquires into me. I imagine I’ll love people again, eventually. But not today—& not up close. I’m learning how time, its blank shimmer, plays across my absence which is not quite absence, not anymore—it’s greener than absence, closer to ritual, a strategy against the debasements. Ignored by the goldfinch, I hum to the dirt, requiring no crumb of compensation. Sunlight buries its body in earth, compost sets forth its gift of rotting, from this rotting blooms my emptiness. Nothing to be but silent here, amid the thirsty miracles. Why continue making such noise—no matter what I say I’m saying hold me.
Jeremy Radin is a poet, actor, playwright, teacher, and extremely amateur gardener. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Ploughshares, The Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, The Journal, and elsewhere. He is the author of two collections of poetry: Slow Dance with Sasquatch (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012) and Dear Sal (not a cult press, 2017). He was born and lives in Los Angeles where he earned his MFA in Eating Large Sandwiches at Brent’s Delicatessen. Follow him @germyradin.