Secret Garden
2023-2024
How to Grow a Thought: Lessons from a Tulip
By Hannah Bea Kropp
By Hannah Bea Kropp
A response to the quote “Tend to your thoughts with care. They have the power to grow weeds or flowers.” - Cleo Wade
Rest is an undervalued part of growth.
There is a lot that we can learn from a garden and the plants that live there.
A garden is a space where pressure does not work.
It is not a race.
It takes patience and time.
The flower or whatever will grow when it feels like it.
You can not rush it.
It needs to rest.
In the fall, we plant bulbs in the nearly frozen ground.
We let them lie under a blanket of frost and snow for the next few months.
Then come spring time, when
and if they are ready,
they will bloom.
They bloom as a reminder of what rest and care can do.
Take a lesson from a tulip:
- Taking time to grow is okay...in fact...it’s needed
- Get comfortable, find a cozy blanket and just lay for a while
- Only bloom on your schedule
Thoughts can grow in every direction.
They can be messy and complicated
but each have the capability of becoming something beautiful.
Be kind to each individual thought.
Give them love and rest.
It takes work to form them and even more work to develop them into actions.
Deep breaths
Cozy blanket
Time.
Do not skip the rest part of the manual.
The Lapse
By Violet Russell
By Violet Russell
A lapse of thought,
swallowed in the clockwork
mechanics of the Earth’s core.
Grind your teeth as they grind
their gears, and you are seeing
double vision; everything is colliding,
and corroding, and configuring.
Shadows melt like lava lamp wax
all a-cast in a strange orange glow,
and we are interconnected.
Your face mine, and my face yours,
and I realize I’m alone again because
we were parts, now, we are whole.
Our love is lost as one;
because love is a gift too beautiful to covet.
I prick my finger on this spindle,
and I’m falling into a daze.
I could stay here for eternity.
Between the blinds, I watch the light
slice into warm pieces of toast.
The honey sun is taking a
pilgrimage behind the mountains,
and the clouds are hurrying off
to the farthest corners of the world.
The sky’s muddled with confusion,
thundering, bruised, they exit in unison.
Where were you when the world ended?
Parts again, no longer whole,
but you are missing entirely,
and I am stuck in everything and nothing,
the fragile breaths of the universe.
I don’t know what I am anymore,
Strung up like a puppet.
I can only react to my actors’ artful hands,
but there’s no one left to move me.
No one to make me dance.
No one to remake me into
something resembling human.
My unmaking was always assured,
but I had always wished someone would be
here to witness it.
I was told once that atoms never touch,
and this distance hurts the more you notice it.
Let’s balance the scales again,
it’s easy if you don’t fear the fall
or get light-headed on the way up.
A lapse of thought,
And the hand clicks to midnight,
Fast asleep into oblivion.
Lost in Translation
By Carlos Yu
By Carlos Yu
I wanted to be in on the jokes too I hated asking
questions their mouths misshapen to cavernous
o’s of loss like they’ve seen me typing into Google
Translate I’m trying to resurrect the brown me
I’m trying to remember the world in
color this body filled brown memories contained
in estranged words ang bagyo ang habagat, ang
alaala, ako spectral words pass through me I feel
only inklings of emotion nothing ever lands only
the haunt of remembering the horror
of translation that pale reflection in the
mirror Fil-Am monster of
misremembering Frankenstein stitched
translucent skin green veined
envy even my body begs to know
what was so funny? If only I could have stayed, if only
I could understand, if only I could feel the weight
instead of this wishing this subjunctive suspension
nonexistence marked all over my chest and shoulders
loss scored onto skin I need a sunny day I‘d beg for my
skin to preserve the glow of memory I want to find the
routes of recall. But I don’t know where I am. I can’t
remember.
She Dreamt of a Doe
By Erin Winship
By Erin Winship
i’m envious of the doe i saw in
the woods
laying on a plush pillow of
grass
in a grove surrounded by
towering trees
the leaves creating beautiful
shade
as she sits in a spot blessed
with sunlight
her ears twitched quickly as i
approached
and when she turned her head
toward me
i held her soft gaze until my
bones felt warm
her chestnut tail fluttered with
every step i took
as fallen twigs cracked under
my light steps
she shifted her body when i got
close enough
to make room for me in her
sunlight
i slowly brought myself down
to the ground
bare knees tickled by the locks
of grass
and i allowed my body to melt
in surrender
she nuzzled her head onto my
back
as she curled her strong body
around mine
i cuddled in close into her soft
white-speckled fur
she held me there as i kissed
her soft fur gently
my pillow is wet with tears
Patterns
By Arianna Delmastro
By Arianna Delmastro
The fields sprawled
One, then another,
Over the land–
The land made of bones pressed together
And grass that lies to catch unsuspecting feet.
We passed herds of cattle
One, then another,
That belong to farmers whose names are known
To everyone but me.
I’ve never seen so much sky unfurled above me.
We passed down unfamiliar roads
One, then another,
And I found myself unable to read.
Swallows built nests above our heads;
Gently chirring, then less gently, they dove and swooned
One, then another,
Into the rafters.
The silver sun sees me as another speck stippling the plain;
Sees me walk, stumble, right myself–
Sees me to bed
And then up again in the morning,
Hears how my heart beats like every other:
One, then another.