Grief’s Garden
Tangled vines, shriveled tendrils that pull me down,
wrap themselves around my heart, crushing any joy held there.
Lacking any life of their own, they drain the same
from me, choking my will to fight their grasp.
There is only darkness in grief’s garden.
This is my response to How Does Your Garden Grow – dVerse Quadrille —
the prompt from Victoria at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use the word garden
in a 44-word poem, with no required meter or rhyme.
rivrvlogr 
Oh, this is so visceral and heartbreaking. You truly encompass in this piece the theme of darkness and isolation of grief. Hugs, friend. Sending many hugs. ❤️
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Thank you, Lucy. Years past, I wrote a poem about grief, Winter Garden, in which that garden looks to the spring and the end of darkness. My mind is not there any longer, but since that poem was so important to me for a while a garden of grief is the first thought that came to me.
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Good writing. Very evocative with a nice flow. You certainly nailed the grief!
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Thank you, kindly.
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Oh my aching heart this is poignant!
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Thank you.
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I get the feeling that there might be brambles in your garden. Even grief can be organic it seems.
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That it is. Thank you, Glenn.
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An aspect of gardens I hadn’t considered–and yet we’ve all been tangled there. (K)
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We have, and sometimes we don’t realize just how tangled it is. Thank you, Kerfe.
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You’re so right, grief drains one’s life force 😦 You describe grief’s garden very well here Ken.
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Thank you, Lisa.
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You’re welcome.
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You have captured the grief in this garden.
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Thank you. Having been there, it’s a place I’d rather view from afar. The gift of time, I guess.
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Grief’s garden can really wrap you up and drag you down. Well done Ken!
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Thank you, Dwight.
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This evokes the feelings of grief in such a powerful way, Ken. I am a bereavement minister at my church and I can see this helping people understand their loss.
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This evokes the feelings of grief in such a powerful way, Ken. I am a bereavement minister at my church and I can see this helping people understand their loss.
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Thank you, Victoria. Though a part of it stays with you forever, understanding it is knowing it doesn’t have to hold you there forever.
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This is such a powerful, heartbreaking image of grief. I’d never thought of a grief garden before, but those tangled vines that pull you down and hold fast. I can definitely see that.
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Thank you, Merril. They do. It’s easy enough to see in the immediate moment, but, for myself, it took hindsight to recognize how much it had affected me.
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I think that’s often the case.
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Oh so true. It is hard to express the power of grief but your imagery says it all. Wow.
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Thank you, Mish. I’m sure that if I’d written it in the moment it would be much darker. Hindsight allows me to see I spent too much time there.
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This poem pushed me to dark place. Kind of sends me to where I am today. Excellent.
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Thank you. Don’t stay long.
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Thanks. It’s okay now. I’ve slept since then.
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🙂
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This garden is so sad… it reminds me a bit of the beginning of the Novel Rebecca and the Garden of Manderley
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I’ve not read that. I’ve just put a hold on the e-book from my library. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the Hitchcock movie, but I understand there’s a remake coming to Netflix in October.
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Such sadness. I want to offer my support for this garden.
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Thank you. It’s that kind of support that lets people know there is more than just that garden.
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I could feel the tendrils of grief grabbing hold. You nailed it. Beautifully done.
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Thank you, Dale. Seeing the light outside of the garden was a gradual process for me, but it’s not difficult to see shadows of it, now and then.
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Beautiful in message and form!
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Thank you. Acknowledging dark places can be important, but I’d rather not dwell in them.
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Wise.
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Grief is truly like tendrils wrapping around the heart. I don’t know if this is personal or not, Ken, but it is a garden worth exploring.
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Thank you, Sara. It has been, but now it’s more of a shadow that presents itself on brief occasions. When it does, I focus on the brighter moments.
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You do write beautifully, Ken.
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🙂 Thank you. 🙂
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ah. you write as only one who has dug there, might know ~
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Thank you. I had to wake to know I’d been there too long.
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The sharp thorns and entangling brambles of a suffocating grief…powerful write, Ken.
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Thank you, Lynn. Fortunately, this one was seen in retrospect.
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