Morning Song \ In The Late Garden

Nancy: What a sound of contentment and peace – the thump of the dog’s tail on the kitchen floor.

Morning Song

A soundless high scud shreds the milky sky

just before dawn, southwest to northeast,

raggedy precursor of rain, or the ground so cold,

ice.  My dog has led me around the dry cornstalks,

past the heavy knots of calendulas in seed,

past the deer-bitten apple tree and turned –

all is well, says his tail, all is safe.

Now the day is mine, to feed the coals in the stove,

to break the silence grinding coffee beans,

to watch the sky bury the dawn in clouds.

The dog opens one eye and says with his tail,

again, all is well, all is safe, and I say yes yes,

as I stack wood on the fire and go about my chores

humming.

Alan: Once my garden was an assertion of order as I measured out the space between seeds, between rows.  The years taught me that nothing comes up or comes out quite as we expect.  And perhaps that’s better.

In The Late Garden

In the clearing

surrounded by spruce trees –

woods that were field and pasture

within our memories –

in the clearing growing back

to goldenrod, aster, hardhack,

field roses, and the shrubs we planted –

hydrangeas, ninebarks, azaleas, overgrown

or choked –

in the wildering space

I still dig over

a few square feet

within this leaning fence.

Within this fenced garden

ramshackle now and weedy

with witch grass, chickweed,

mulleins, self-seeded hollyhocks,

a few calendulas,

I still dig,

turning over the soil for garlic,

preparing the soil

for next year’s beans.

A few square feet

is all we need now

or can manage.

I am in this garden

with my whole body, digging

and pulling weeds, and listening,

seeing the soil come up in clots

at my feet, shaking it from the roots,

my skin alert to the air,

its motions of Fall mixing warm and chill.

Raven sits on the highest spruce

just out of sight behind the wood’s edge

and comments.

“Garock-garock.  Garock-garock”

says Raven.  “Raven,” I say,

“is this a greeting?”  “Garock-garock.”

“Do you keep watch over this place

even when we’re gone?”

I surmise this but can’t know.

I think of Raven as beneficent,

never my father’s “dark, malevolent shapes”

(the ignorance of fear).

As wise, even, and far-seeing.

But I can’t know, really.

“Garock-garock.”

                                    Oh, Raven,

today or some day years off,

may I feel death come over me in this garden

and, falling, turn to face Sky.

Fly down then from your hidden perch.

Walk around me three or four times, inspecting.

Cock your head, attending.

Pry out the blue grapes from my face

before Crow or Vulture, Coyote or Fox

can find me.

Carry them back and swallow,

so that I may see, through you, in death

what in life I could not discern,

even to the azure limits;

so you will know what love grew,

and what questions, what suppositions

and what longing,

in this narrow, earth-bound skull.