A Garden Within

I toil in Adams’s legion day by day,
As sweat to dust now feeds the barren clay.
Have I lost sight of what once burned so bright?
Yet deep within, where shadows fear to stray,

A patch remains, untended, raw and plain,
Ten thousand days beneath life’s driving rain.
It waits there still through layers dark with time,
Not Eden’s glory, but its own domain.

No haven lush with dreams of sweet repose,
But stubborn earth where silent strength still grows.
It thirsts in patience for its hidden spring,
As sun beats down and bitter north wind blows.

This garden, stark, persists without a bloom,
No graceful swan song echoes through the gloom.
Just raw endurance in a world of toil,
Where living’s but a whisper in the room.

Relentless plot that dwells within my chest,
Untouched by hands that never truly rest.
A testament to beauty’s stubborn will,
That even in the drought remains possessed.