The Garden Man

I wrote this poem in response to the sculpture "Garden Man" by Bob Turan at Art in the Orchard. What I love about this piece is how the figure's body becomes whatever is behind him. He's solid yet transparent. He's static, but when something moves in him, he seems to move, too. He's also making an opposite gesture from Mount Tom (seen in the background), which makes him seem to me like another mountain watching over the valley.

The Garden Man

Today a dog and three people

passed through my heart.

The apples were ripe

and they’d come to pick.

They didn’t see me:

I am everything they already know

but I welcomed their motion

in my stasis of green.

I was made to shelter growing things,

not to move them.

And in the sheltering

I become them.

My arms are squash blossoms

and the apple-laden orchard.

My legs are the soil,

my shoulders the mountain.

The blue above is an opposing force

as I lean into the road, the grass.

My head is the sky.

Transparent to the valley, I breathe

green life. Yet even though

my muscles are made of air,

everything with wings

seems beyond my reach.

After sunset

I change completely,

become a bone—

starlight for marrow.

The moon crosses my mind

once in a while.

Fireflies and bats

keep their distance.

What we are made of defines us:

for me more than most.

Usually I’m a lens—a frame—a container.

But today a dog and three people

passed through my heart.

The dog ran, the people gathered fruit.

They didn’t see me

or know me

or need me

and in those moments

I was free.