Take My Hand – Christine Valters Paintner

lease don’t plant me 

neat rows of rosebushes 

and tulips at attention, 

no manicured gardens

or crystal vases of cut stems.

Instead, take my hand,

lead me onto 

rain-softened grass 

which undulates like a boat 

on a summer lake,

lie down with me 

in a quilt of sunlight and shadows

among yellow petals, violet trumpets,

a feast for hares and bees,

let’s linger and forget ourselves

until even the tiled sky above 

is cracked open by stars

and all that is restless and wild 

within us can roam the heavens 

howling the moon aloft.

—Christine Valters Paintner