Michael Battisto

Dry Cool Garden

Your small hands open
the dry cool garden.

The mountains there allow us to be older
than our sleep.

We see where the horizons palely
folded in on themselves,

we see their thin red roots
the light has been making beneath the hills.

We see the palm tree centering the landscape,
keeping the morning and noon and evening in its leaves.

The plants hold their shadows inside their crowns
and receive the coolness as water.

We can receive less than we need
and make that fact our condition.

And so we alter
our concept of garden,

which is where the beauty of human art
finds the beauty of the world.

In the evening the owl is a story
we tell about the sky.

Your small hands
close again.

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Michael Battisto has work that can be found or forthcoming in HAD, Cypress Poetry, Josephine Quarterly, MoonPark Review, Frogpond and elsewhere. He lives in Oakland, but you can find him online @michaelbattisto.com.