Poem / Adonis in the jungle 🌺

Elderly men on benches outstare weary marble and bronze
the silent misery of one tormented
Adonis carved in mid-sigh, sinewy
among daisies. His head slightly lifted,
as if about to sneeze.

Perhaps allergic to daisies, wishing
to stroll the Butterfly House
                           the Arboretum
                                         the Azalea trail?
Elderly men know better. Gathered in damp warmth
this early Tuesday morning, they have dared the wind
and found it wanting.

The glass roof curves in prismatic splendor
green as unripe fruit; light struggles
to diffuse through panes as thick
with mold as with glass, floats greenly over foliage
preying on deep-sea lack of rays. No fish
fly here; noisy swallows glide by.



Behind me, children cheer, escape into the inner thicket
of palm and fern and moss, a green turmoil with pale legs and arms
ordered around by a tired mother
stuck with the stroller on the graveled path
helpless to pursue the unruly feet that scavenge
the quiet inner jungle.

Statues are curious, the skin as smooth
the arms and legs and hair
as full and free as if each of them breathed air
caught in an endless moment of our choosing
and yet the eyes are empty. A kind
or cruel gesture by the sculptor:
                to see is our greatest cause for lament and pleasure. 

A wide-eyed child comes to a halt,
investigates the curling hair, the twisting abdomen
the torso thinned implausibly, the bending knees
the veined arms, that one toe pointing towards the stone.
A toddler pale as marble, frozen for but a minute,
weak as water on a ruptured palm leaf
again set on movement, as if to tease the bonded figure:
a forward course beyond the palms.

The jungle lives and breathes encapsulated in glass. Without
this constant heat, the leaves would succumb,
underneath the sighs and dead eyes of marble figures
winged and with frozen smiles
                                             This jungle lives:
children hide and seek within its heart
while old men stare down visitors.

 @SteemSwede