The Ides of March
I am not much of a gardener. When
the ice breaks up on the lake I am not
the first to launch my canoe. Nature’s first
gold is not gathered by my eyes or hands.
I live through this change of seasons. A box
of last year’s potting soil patiently waits
for something—seeds, sunshine, rain—outside my
door. Somewhere in the attic paddles wait,
doggedly refusing to change into
something more relevant to who I am.
My thumb is not green, fertilizer does
not stain my fingers. What worms may do does
not provide me with reasons to go out.
I am neither mammal nor plant enough.
Listening to Stormy Weather, on Your Birthday
The nurses put a ribbon in your hair
before they showed you to your mother. Last
year a ribbon of snow on the far peaks
of Himalaya marked your eighty-
seventh birthday. Today, eighty-eight, you
pray in the midst of your life’s hallowed
clutter. Somewhere that first ribbon waits. We
could walk to your mother’s grave today, care-
fully, the sidewalks icy. Snow lasts in
the photograph hanging on your bedroom
wall—a ribbon of snow on the far peaks.
Avoid Commentary
Avoid commentary.
Life is not a sporting event, much of the time, and
even if it is that, a sporting event
let me watch it in peace, drawing my own conclusions, or
gently,
respectful of what it takes to observe, point out
what strikes you as interesting—if I ask,
explain,
if I turn you on, speak until I am tired of your speaking.
—thanks to John for sharing his work with Green Hill! click here to see more