Gardening with Lions

I was struck by the truth of the human condition contained in this passage – we are better humbled and living than proud and dead. I thought about how we often lionize the dead, particularly those who die suddenly or unexpectedly. Through the lens of Black Lives Matter, I was thinking about how we lionize the names of those who have died due to police violence. As much as we should and want to remember these people, we would much rather that we did not have to – that they were indeed still alive. So the metaphor of the garden, the transformation of the dead into fuel for new life and growth – is ultimately a hopeful one. It is an instance where one is joined with all the living. Yet, even as the gardener in the poem contemplates and interrogates whether good things can come from these untimely deaths – he finds himself hoping that he too doesn’t become another dead lion during an interaction with the police. So the title gardening with lions – is in a way to be in communion with the dead – while cultivating new possibilities in our current life.