Bent under a ton of rock,
Iron determination his fuel,
he plods onward,
always needing to stamp out a new path
on the shifting, treacherous ground.
Treading lightly,
possessions slung over one shoulder,
she looks from side to side
and stumbles now and then,
distracted by flowers and rain
and stars and wind.
When they meet, he bats angrily and impatiently
at the butterflies that cloud around her head
if they come too near
and growls to her,
"What have you been doing?"
and she is struck dumb
in mid-sentence
and does not know.
Together they are charged with tending a garden,
which grows, fitfully and unevenly,
benefitting from her love and his practical solutions,
abandoned, drying up, when he or she forgets,
deafened by their inner voices.
In the garden grows a child.....