The Gardener took me out to his field
“What do you see? he said, his voice quiet.
But all I could see was the overpass
and figures walking across the glass bridge.
So I said, seeing only road and glass,
“I see a black snake and men in cages.”
But the voice repeated, “What do you see?”
“I see land unworked, people far from soil.”
My car passed beneath the bridge, but he asked
as I drove down the highway, what I had seen.
So I, knowing that many images
are tired and worn with tire tracks, slept.
In sleep I pondered new ways to answer
and so extract the message from the scene.
How could I fit the sun, bridge, and figures
together in a new beautiful way.
But when he asked what I had seen I just
said, “an overpass crossing the road.”
