A scurry of munks
Are eating my garden;
To you they're cute,
But my heart's hardened.
They chirp at the trough
Of my labored crop;
Like double-dippers
They pouch and they run,
They sound like they're laughing,
Like they're having some fun.
I curse and complain,
But the munks keep returning,
Like a recurring refrain
Of free loaders and hoarders.
Should I feel such disdain?
After some thought,
We're much the same.

Take away the 
Disease in these branches;
The tares from 
This fertile ground.
Remove the stones
From this heart and 
Plow the earth
Until I am nothing 
But pure, organic soil
Ready for your
Be-fruitful-and-multiply
Seeds.

I found my mother outside in our shed
holding her trowel in May.
We walked to the farmers market
and she told me where vegetables come from.
The morning was spent planting seeds and bulbs
close to her heart, my future siblings.

Mother taught me the painstaking birth
of cabbage and watermelon.
We were impatient in the kitchen
while we stirred soup and noodles,
peaking out the kitchen window.

I started planting trees for distraction.
Mom told me
I would hammock under them in time,  
shade my forehead in leafy kisses,
turn my novel pages with soft breeze.

Father watered the tomatoes to relieve
mother from the neck-breaking June sunlight.
She watched through the doorway.
Each night, with baby monitors wired through
cracked windows, Mom waited to pick
her devotions from stem until they were ready.

In August I saw my grandma smile
in crow’s feet happiness
at life that she held in cupped palms,
covered in placenta dirt.

I descended the stairs in dread,
Shading my eyes
From the late August sun
Coming through the window,
Onto the landing.
The rakes leaned against the garage wall
Like prisoners on work detail.
Mammy had plain porridge,
Toast, jam and strong tea prepared
For our last summer breakfast.
No tomatoes.
We'd work on the clumps of dirt,
Breaking, raking, smoothing,
Preparing the ground for next Spring.
The root cellar we dug beneath
The newly poured porch
Was filled with the harvest
Of the auld sod's outlook.
On the sideboard, stacked in four neat piles,
Rose our school supplies for Tuesday.
He stood guard at the bottom of the yard.
I drove the prongs through the clumps,
Waiting for the school bell.

Earth my church
I dig within and plant with fervor
kneeling  grasping skin wet smeared
immersed in wondrous mystery

Yet sacrilege there needs to be
crushing bugs with vehemence
between gloved thumb and finger.

Some lost flower part
sparks into my vision
field today. The abrupt
edge of a prepared land
welcomes the color
and new shy stock.

Neighboring higher
life forms succumb
to delicate nibbling,
after the moon 's squinting
dance partner settles into
the vicious dust.

My long tube of
garden fluid
appears each effervescent
morning to envelope
the rooty darkness
with a fill of
such precious sipping.

In shorter daily periods
what is left dwindling
below is yanked from
an unfruitful oblivion
and added
into the content of a
pleasant April uprising.

Most days he mows
the immaculate lawn of his front yard,
sweeps the carport
and trims the hedges back to near buzz-cut.

Today he sank
to his knees, arthritic bones aching for
soft patch of earth
or lush grass on which to rest his grey head.

In the spring, buds
burst like silent fireworks near the road,
all his doing,
and the birds alight to watch him plant more.

I have watched for
a near lifetime his yard across the way
morph into Eden –
one handmade with weak limbs – and I know now

the cost of love
for things that cannot love you back. He is old,
with a question
mark for a spine. He sweats and bleeds for his home.

He has no job
but to nourish the Carolina clay,
into yielding
beauty that cannot love a single soul.

I was heading
out of town for a long time. I didn’t know
if he’d be there
once I got back. But, my intuition

whispered, yes. He
has no home but the earth. Even after
his silent death
he will still be watering the flowers

and the blossoms will not love him more,
but never less.

My garden, bedded
in rest.
The roses bloomed like chiffon twirls
shine or shade
You approached with vested
Interest
Your neon eye-shadow, your black-tar curls
With intent like clumsy mower blades

You brought a dandelion from my neighbor’s lawn.
Its puff splitting, flying from your breath like a song from
Your lips, I thought a wish flew along.
There was no wish; just seeds, scattered. Gone.

You entered my home, keeping me captive.
I thought the walls closed every time you left.
Breath shallow, you told me I was maladaptive.
You found him, you were gone. Only the ring I gave you was left.

I was wrong; walls didn’t crumble because you were gone, but
Because you were here, my foundation crumbled from
Morning glories, untended, the vines grew too long, and
In and out of the concrete, my rose bushes crumpled.

I near let my home die
I rebuilt from rubble what’s mine

Late summer, I toiled, upturning rose root.
Piled the brush, for us, a pyre.
A former self turns to a pile of empty bottles and soot
My friends called it your wake, this bonfire.

Leaves fell, still, I toiled.
Killing the vines with water I boiled.
Tilling the land, laying rose-ash under soil.
Aching back, 56 degrees, sweat, too tired to pull the splinters.

Then came winter.
Ice blew over and all those weeds died.
It started to seem funny, all those times I cried
Over You.

I find my love was never a closet;
A trap meant for one, but
a well that runs deep and
the groundwater clean.

Spring comes, green growth peaks into view
I breathe the air, happy with the year in review.
I plant rhododendrons where  common roses bloomed and
A vegetable patch where grass once grew.

My garden flourishes with life and color.
I look to my garden wanting just to tend
my garden, it grows like feelings for new lovers.
I think of how it will look by summer’s end.

Grass like fingers reaching to the sun with new
life, prospering. As the rhododendrons rise from
the care I’m fostering and tomatoes will
ripen and shine when the sun gives luster, and

Fruits from the vine plump with nectar inside.
Sustenance for me, of course,
A boon to the birds, the bees
As She and her soft hands help tend my crop
Pulling stray weeds, sweating from the force.


The flowers will grow in colorful clusters like
July fireworks, a boom for every new bloom.
The difference, Rose, is I
trust her.
She will not turn my garden, my home
into another crumbling tomb.