Sunday Stanza: Poem Forty Three: Imagine By Hannah Williams

Imagine a garden
An elusive garden.

You walk past the willow tree
It reflects your silenced state.
Yet you do not cry nor smile.
You did that on your first visit.
I did both on my second.
This is together is our third.
The wind knows our names.
Yet it dares not trouble.
Petals fall beneath your feet.
With no reverence of them
You step solemnly.
With the shroud of your voice stripped.

Solemn sounds are now stolen.
I have seared your silence.

Across the wooden bridge
With an effervescent lake beneath.
I saw the bilingual beauty
Of flora and fauna coexisting.
So, I walked across,
Wading by the waters.
You could have warned me.
Yet I know, in a world with no words.
Actions design the fate.
I died in that lake.
Why did you take the bridge?

Imagine this open space
An elusive place.

Where the Bird of Elegance walks
Asking you to take one of its feathers.
Promising you it will give you a voice.
A voice that makes you speak up.
It is not about your accent or pace.
Nor about dialects and sociolects.
Rather a voice of your own.
Articulated in speech and tone.
Fanning out its feathers
Take one for your shroud.
Let your words walk like the Bird of Elegance.
Parade the prose like a peacock.

Which feather did you pluck?
What did it mean to you?