The Garden of Ramanatom

By on Mar 3, 2019 in Poetry

Butterfly in garden

I tell them about entropy—March buds ignore me—
Boltzmann’s equation nobody believed,
It killed him. Lawn’s growing verdant new hair—
New strands shall wave at admiring chicks;
the bald spot will vanish by June.

(That’s not how it worked with me.)
Each crocus emanating from old roots;
morning glories shall hang from the trellis
like a bunch of resurrecting kids—
Rip van Winkle is a katydid,

an old bug renewed by spring’s copy machine;
even if a meadowlark devours him,
his kin will look exactly like his parents,
no rose would notice the difference.
Like Dorian Gray, I’ve recaptured youth—

After flitting around blossoms like a bee
I’ll seduce a sensuous woman
who’ll find me sexy as Hercules—
We’ll still have time and energy for love
even after jogging for six hours—

Yeah, right. It’s already dusk for this lark;
wings pass the face of a luminous clock
in a darkening sky. Yet I’m still here,
tending my garden. Despite you, I thrive,
Entropy! Chervil is old as I feel.

About

Thomas Dorsett has retired from medicine but certainly has not retired from writing. Examples of his poetry have regularly appeared in literary magazines since 1974; he is the author of several books, and maintains an active blog: https://thomasdorsett.blogspot.com/. He is utterly convinced of the truth of a quote from Hopkins:"There lives the deepest freshness deep down things." To assuage grief, all one needs to do is really look at a leaf. A whole tree? Ecstasy!