Chapter 1 – The Reaper and the Gardener

Just like ripe fruit

My dogwood flower fell

Was snatched up

By strange hands and

Dropped in a basket

To mingle with the

Fallen fruits of others

Passing this way.

Mine, the solid flower of ivory

Bound by silver chains of ancestry

Lost to a collector, a gathering

One of many; oblivious

To my single bloom.

Who will know me? Who will come

Into my secret garden to

Count my petals? Who carries the

Seed lost to a stranger?

Who will bury it once more?

Make my day