A Brutal Love
by Kimberly Phinney
In my garden, mid-bloom,
I take the sheers
and cut them to their knuckles.
Breaking their necks,
the petals shed like blood
on the sodden earth.
I stand over them.
I am brutal
to the roses,
to the day lilies,
and daisies.
To the gardenias,
I am brutal
and unyielding—
their burnt offerings,
white ash,
like a death before me.
But I know better.
Oh, it is a Brutal Love
that birthed the universe,
demanded Isaac,
offered Job,
and required the Cross!
His is a Brutal Love:
ancient and unyielding,
perennial and unchanging.
Oh, it is a Brutal Love
that sheered me mid-bloom,
that allowed for winter days
of barren grief—
a dark night of the soul
like a death before me.
But He knew better.
In His garden
there is a severe mercy
in His pruning—
a Brutal Love falling down like rain.
And in His season
there is a humming from the earth:
a green bud unfurled.
And He is standing over me.
THE STORY BEHIND “A BRUTAL LOVE”
We learn so much when we are quiet and in gardens. This poem was a spiritual download for me as I recovered from my severe illness in 2021. It took me a full year to survive my surgeries and learn to walk again, and “A Brutal Love” was my first poem about my experiences facing sepsis and being bedridden for months on end with a rare cancer-like autoimmune disease.
I was working in my garden ALONE for the first time in more than a year, pruning my unkempt flowers—which, to be honest, looked just as sick as me: shriveled, bloomless, and weed-infested. I realized I had to be truly unmerciful as I sheered my beloved plants back to a seemingly nothing. I shed a tear because it felt like heartless abuse. But inside I knew it was required so they would have a chance to thrive again. If I left them as they were, they would never bloom in the Spring as I knew they could and one day be so overcome by the wild weeds they would perish.
That’s when God stepped in and whispered to me, “See? See what I am doing with you? I am doing a NEW thing! I HAD to be “reckless” as you perceived it because I knew you needed pruning! I was preparing you for a future Spring you know nothing of!” I finally started to understand. I saw a glimpse of what God sees when he looks at us. I cried and nodded and said back to Him, “Beauty from ashes.”
I went inside to sit awhile in the silence. And this poem is what came.
You see, sometimes it is a brutal love that is required. Sometimes we must face an autumn—or winter, even. And in it all, we need only trust in HIM and believe.
Amen?
Publication Note: “A Brutal Love” was first published in print with Calla Press Literary Journal in Spring of 2022. Please see more at www.CallaPress.com.
Kimberly Phinney is a national award-winning AP English instructor and professional photographer. She’s been published in Christianity Today’s Ekstasis Magazine, Ruminate, The Dewdrop, Amethyst Review, Calla Press, Heart of Flesh, Agape Review, The Clayjar Review, Sunday Mornings at the River, and The Write Launch, among others. She has her M.Ed. in English and studied at Goddard’s MFA program in Creative Writing. She is founder and editor of this fine literary journal and platform, The Way Back to Ourselves, and a poetry editor with Agape Review. After almost dying from severe illness in 2021, she’s earning her doctorate in counseling to help the marginalized and suffering.