—After On Gardens by Rick Barot

I read about the garden,
the friars who romped in the village 
plucking white flowers
and feel bad for the pillaged girls.

They were plucked like Linda,
an Amish girl nearby,
kidnapped, raped and killed. 
Young, unmarried, innocent,
Linda was used for sex, discarded 
in a tarp underground to rot
after being finished her off. 
Her family and community
manned a phone booth for months,
waiting for the girl’s call. 

Colonial settlers ravaged 
American Indians and our land 
the same way the friars
pollinated white flowers.

I would shape change each girl
into a huntress,
a black hawk with sharp talons
and a dagger beak.
Or form them into inviolate rocks
in a garden cushioned by softest moss.
Or pour them out as white sand
in a temple garden, 
a raked maze of gentle curves
and straight lines to nibble 
light and cast shadows. 

Oh happy girl. When she blooms black.
When she blooms rock.
When she blooms sand.
When we protect her.