Mandarin Peach

The last doctrine left in this landscape
was shot trying to escape. Right there,
under the triple fence rails where brambles
make Gordian knots over and around
the tunneled paths of small and clever beasts.
Our genius and curse lie in drawing conclusions,
constantly smudged as we revise. But now
I think I’ve concluded them all, and can rest
on a sumptuous cloud of ambiguity,
while all around the angels fight in wars
singular for noise and lack of bloodshed.
This is what a garden is for: not peace,
but where futility meets endurance,
a counterpart to wisdom and restraint,
in the business of catbirds and spiders,
and in work that is nothing like a job.