Weeds

It was not too long ago—but quite long enough—I sat, clipboard on my knee. It contained a sheaf of plain white paper, a drawing of a Spanish courtyard, and a poem.

One day, I inherited a garden.
I discovered weeds.
Yes, there were weeds.
I pulled one. It came easily enough, but the root broke off.
Ah well.
I pulled another.
Next weed.
Soon a corner of the garden was mostly weedless.

I returned to the garden a week later.
The root had begun growing again.
It was too small to grab hold of,
So I left it alone.
It grew.

I returned a week later.
It was long enough to hold now.
I pulled.
The weed would not come up.
I pulled.
I pulled with both hands.
I put on gloves and pulled.
I braced myself with both feet.
I pulled.
The weed was battered and beat up, but still would not come out.
Meanwhile, the other weeds sought garden hegemony.

But I WILL have a weedless garden.
I will continue pulling.

“It is sloppy and poorly written. The tone is all over. It’s free verse, and not very good free verse at that. And it only expresses the human half. It doesn’t really explain—well, why the garden should be weeded—and it’s all me doing the weeding. Apparently my muse wasn’t listening at Bible study, when we talked about –what were we talking about? We’ve been talking about it for months—”

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Without faith, you cannot please God.
Work out your faith—
Work out your faith—
Not by works, lest any man should boast.

(To please God!)

And yet it is not I who live, but Christ lives in me.
Drudgery—not drudgery—
But I want to have a weedless garden.
No weeds.
Just flowers.
Fruit, which God grows and you don’t.