A Poem of Love, Loss, and Losing a Child to Suicide-“Tillers of the Earth and Tenders of the Soil”

We are the tillers of the earth and the tenders of the soil.

These trees and plants and water garden were here before us, and they will be here after we go.

We take care of them that they might take care of us and that love might be this caring for one another. 


We are the tillers of the earth and the wakers of the soil.
 
How wonderful to see purple this late in the fall and orange on the kindling.
 
Insects swarm madly. What are they doing? Where are they going?

Where go all of us when stand we no longer (further) on grounds hallowed and loved?


We are all tired of blooming, and so rest we now where hallowed love lies and dreams live on even past this point where we are one.
 
We sit, we watch, we wait, for time has a way of catching us all a little off guard and unwilling to wield yield.


Tired I rest, tired I fall, and so wonder when, then, I can no longer be this tiller of earth, tender of soil?

When no longer I can mother these roots, bark, leaves, budding and blooming, where then must I go?
 
Where must I be when all that mothers me isn’t any more green and growing?
 
Where must we be when tender no more this sky-earth reach where love in-between sends nights' sky sleep songs to ease her sorrow? 

  
That always we could be crickets at dusk and water-lilies opening.
 
That always we could be skimming iridescent hues past this pain of knowing that even seasons lose their way.
 
That Sun-sky could hold ache of us now–tangled branches caught in January, berries spindled against stark limbs.

Beth Brown, 2021