"Lessons From My Gardener/Groomer"
By Anthony Roberts
What I was taught
Identify your desired end state
Plant the seeds nurture water and feed until green shoots break
earth replete with the coding they need to bloom give them soil
give them room
Where weeds and other flowers grow teach them to compete with
each other for time, water, and light let them know the cold of the
night lest they be pulled and cast from sight to
Teach them to want and hunger while
The rhizomes below stretch under seeking another way to find that
which they have been denied out of sight out of mind
These are the lessons my gardener groomed in me
I don’t want to be the gardener let the weeds grow where they will
Random patches of sage thyme and dill or perhaps lavender
sprays that hold aromatic promise within sachets
Give me instead the tool of sharpened spade of pruning shears or
well honed blade or loaded pistol that will numb with cordite and
powder taste a blackened bleeding tongue
Anthony Roberts is a veteran of Baltimore and Afghanistan. He currently lives in New Jersey in a home with beautiful views and interlocking fields of fire.
He is the author of Pigtown and The Clearing Barrel.
What’s happening at VetRep…
Now showing at The Parlor is “The Absurdity of it All” by Chris Soucy, a VetRep Resident Artist. Chris is an Army veteran, co-founder of Odd Lot Improv and the Savannah Shakes Theater Company, and has worked as an actor, puppeteer, writer, director, and filmmaker, with over 30 years of experience in the theater industry. We are thrilled to produce “The Absurdity of it All”, as the first full-length play written for VetRep by a Resident Artist, promising a truly unique performance you can’t get anywhere else. Get your tickets before they sell out!
We would also like to extend our gratitude to Arts Mid Hudson for awarding VetRep the Dutchess programmatic grant in support of this production.
This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson.