once, upon a time

there lived within his garden, once, upon a time
a man of quiet, singular and unsubstantialed
in communion with the aphids and the otters

growing for their mystery all manner, form
of buttery flies, cantakerous and shallow
creatures that ate his father's shallow breathing

respecting neither boundary nor edging placed
for keeping back the wilder ness, the phantasmic
intrusions bent on weeding round his roses

he grew within his gray and amber eyes
a rioting of spores, within his charnel lips
rapacious germinations unmarked or catalogued

and with the dawn he placed his stones, correctly
compositioned, accurately sized by the
predeterminations of the lunar tides

consulted, with the mid day sun, old prophecies
bought dearly from the gypsy moths, paid
with peonies cut in their full blooming

but with the tiring of the sun, comes into
its shadow, into these failing perishments
into the apprehensive gardener, all

the pests of places not his own, of
unfamiliar odor unfamiliar taste, of
poisonous and unnatural proclivity

for there lived within his garden, once,
upon a time, a man of virtuous intention
who grew within his heart a blight