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Garden Metamorphosis
Garden Metamorphosis
Garden Metamorphosis
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Garden Metamorphosis

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In the midst of a confusing and frightening world, Smoky Zeidel remains true to form with her poetry, gently reminding us to close out the superfluous and remember that which is sacred. Garden Metamorphosis is both a love song to Mother Earth, and a celebration of the cycle of life.

In “Dirt,” Zeidel wishes us “More dirt paths through forest, meadow, and desert,/pine needles and humus and sand sticking to your feet.” In “Hawk Dance,” she shares with us a spiritual moment: “Oh hawks, if I had wings! I hear your music’s secret score,/I start to dance, and dance into the night.” And in “The Big Picture,” her silent prayer is a benediction for all of us: “Slay me with a sunset numinous/ whose colors have no names./Let me see the big picture,/live a macro life,/before my days are over and/my bones reduced to dust.”

Read the complete poems, plus Zeidel’s short story, “Transformed.” 

LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 12, 2018
ISBN9781386044819
Garden Metamorphosis
Author

Smoky Zeidel

Smoky Zeidel is a poet and novelist whose love of the natural world is thematic in all she writes. She taught writing and creativity workshops for many years at venues throughout the Midwest before succumbing to her bohemian urges and moving to Southern California. Her work has earned her two nominations for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. Smoky lives in a ramshackle cottage in the hills outside Los Angeles with her husband Scott and a plethora of animals, both domestic and wild.

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    Book preview

    Garden Metamorphosis - Smoky Zeidel

    Garden Metamorphosis

    ––––––––

    Smoky Zeidel

    Copyright 2018 by Smoky Zeidel

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher, with the exception of brief quotations in a review.

    This story is a work of fiction. While some of the historical references may be real, characters and incidents within the book are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

    Thomas-Jacob Publishing, LLC

    USA

    For the monarch caterpillars

    that choose to grace my yard

    each winter,

    and

    For the Guitar Man.

    Table of Contents

    Poem

    The Butterfly Effect

    Sacred Soil

    The Guitar Man

    The Guitar Man, #2

    Dirt

    Desert Rain

    Fish Kisses

    My Father's Trains

    The Birdwatcher

    Garden Metamorphosis

    The Golden Rule

    Hawk Dance

    How to Read a River

    Of What Would a Garden Dream

    Sanctus

    Wind

    Sleeping Beauty

    Sometimes I Think I Am Like Water

    Magic

    Wait

    Solstice

    Now

    The Big Picture

    Do Not Go Meekly Into Troubled Days*

    Bonus Content: Transformed:  A Short Story by Smoky Zeidel

    About the Author

    More Books by Smoky Zeidel:

    Poem

    [poh-uh m]

    noun

    ––––––––

    Words

    weaving a mosaic,

    dancing across the page,

    singing.

    The Butterfly Effect

    ––––––––

    The monarch butterfly doesn't care

    who was elected president,

    if a wall is built,

    that Leonard Cohen is dead.

    Walls and oligarchs mean nothing to her,

    she can't miss music she doesn't hear.

    Instead she's focused on laying her eggs

    on the milkweed plants growing in my garden

    Before taking to the air,

    heading south to Mexico.

    Sacred Soil

    ––––––––

    This is what good garden soil is made from:

    dead leaves and apple peelings,

    eggshells and coffee grounds,

    wilted spinach, carrot tops and potato skins,

    detritus amassed in the course of our days,

    the rotting remains of what once was alive.

    If life is sacred, then food is holy,

    the decayed earth in which it grows, hallowed.

    My garden’s my church,

    sacred ground from which miracles spring—

    beet greens and broccoli,

    Brussels sprouts, kale,

    lettuce and corn and beans.

    I once knew a woman afraid of the earth.

    She ate only broth made from cabbage and herbs,

    what grew above the decayed soil,

    the rot.

    How ironic her body now lies in that soil

    which crippled her in life.

    She never stepped barefoot into the loam,

    splashed in puddles or baked mud pies.

    As for me, while I live I will

    bury my naked toes deep in the soil,

    cavort with the earthworms,

    celebrate decay.

    Then, when I die,

    bury my ashes in a garden somewhere,

    and plant a tomato or orange tree

    as my grave marker.

    Allow me to rot,

    to become sacred soil,

    complete my life’s circle,

    and nourish new growth.

    The Guitar Man

    ––––––––

    The love affair started when he was a kid,

    because his sister wanted to

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