Gardener

Here's a poem I have been tinkering with ever since April 1 when my MSN Home page spit out the information that April was genocide awareness month. It seemed so bizzare, almost obscene, to try to stuff something as immense and horrific as genocide into a month. As so often happens, the poem went in a somewhat different direction than I expected. Upon Learning that April Is Genocide Prevention Month As if you didn’t have enough to do, April, here you come babbling about genocide prevention. Sweet, hippie-girl April, with your daffodils everywhere shouting their happy yellow song and waving at me as I pass, your grass so green it hurts my eyes, and the pale green leaves of trees, like tiny cupped hands that catch and drink the misty air. Oh, April, bright, fragile, hopeful April, all the tender trees are dressed in their thin green-gold ingénue frocks, ready to dance the night away. Will you cancel the prom? And what would you have us do? Shall we send a flower to a warlord? A bouque