‘Heritage’ and Other Poetry by C.B. Anderson

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Heritage

I’ve never asked for anything
The living soil does not provide.
I don’t want cash; I don’t want bling;
I only want to stand beside

The footprints of departed fathers,
Now looking down through time and space
To see what son it is who bothers
To understand his proper place.

I never thought I’d be the one
To trace this legacy so late,
But I am not the only son
Who scorned the fare put on his plate.

The final stroke is all that matters
When winding down ancestral clocks,
And note how every sunbeam scatters
Off Avalon’s inviting docks.

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The Old Gardener’s Garden

His yard looked like a highly touched-up scene
From Better Homes and Gardens magazine.
_I asked him what he did on Sundays.
_“I groom the corner where the nun prays.”
He pointed to a kneeling figurine
Half-hidden in a shaded swath of green,

Then showed me to a bench made out of teak
Where we sat down, and he began to speak:
_“It doesn’t take much effort to
_Enjoy the things that Nature grew,
But taking care of them involves some work,
As you’d expect in any thriving kirk,

And that’s what I’ve been sent down here to do.”
His claim to piety was nothing new,
_But I could tell he wasn’t kidding:
_He hustled off to do the bidding
Of some compelling supernatural force,
And I was asked to tag along, of course.

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C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden.  Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India.  His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.