The Beautiful Garden

By Frater Valak

A beautiful garden is cherished by those who see its beauty.
Pleased and adoring, they wish to see this beauty endure.
Endurance requires fortification, a preserving environment.
This protection guards against the disruption of the beautiful garden, resisting the taint of violation.
This barrier prevents change, becomes a prison.
Those who have caged this beauty fear its loss and destruction.
They who once admired it can no longer see it beyond the height of the walls.
They who once revelled in the magnificence now have only a memory to cherish.
The beautiful garden mourns the loss of attention.
It becomes overgrown, strangled with weeds - it rots.
The stench of rot is obscured by reinforcement of the walls.
Many cling to the memory of beauty; some just forget.
Others come who haven't this memory and wonder what it might be, for they see but a grey wall.
Striving to comprehend, they climb the wall only to find the distasteful reek of decadence and stagnation.
They argue that there is no beauty to be found therein.
Those who remember do not wish to believe.
The truth is too painful to face, for most.
These others seek understanding from they who remember the beauty of the garden.
They seek to bring that beauty back, but see that it will be difficult.
The guardians who regulate fear the transition of change.
They have become comfortable with authority, they covet control.
It is less painful, easier, they say, to keep things as they are.
Those with newfound purpose and vision struggle to be heard.
They strive to save the remnants of the beautiful garden, to restore it.
With the truth about the garden, they sway some and then many to support their efforts.
The guardians are forced from their place.
The walls of the garden are torn down.
The garden is devastated.
The visionaries begin to clean the rubble away.
They tear the weeds from the earth, cut away the suckers and deadwood.
New seeds are sown.
In time, there is a garden restored, a garden of great beauty.
The beautiful garden is cherished by those who see its beauty.