“I flung myself under a fig tree and gave free course to my tears.”

-Aristotle, Confessions

Garden walks are fraught with implications:
a kiss in Gethsemane’s shaded slopes
gave rise to wars and coronations,
zealots trading blades for priestly robes;
under Athens’ trellises, lads pressed
to catch the Master’s quips like drops of wine;
and Babylonian kings, in arbors dressed,
read battle scripts in every tangled vine.
Tonight we graft ourselves to them—we take
slow steps beneath the interlacing boughs—
each furtive touch a covenant we make,
bound by martyrs, kings, and Aristotle’s brow.
Let reason wait—desire will speak like this:
the breath before the dialectic and a kiss.