Origins

Messing around in my Mother’s garden, I see now how tangled
roots can make a person want to throw down the trowel. It takes
muscle to claim your ground.

How a prim pilgrim girl trembles in wonder as the Ship’s Captain
removes his hat, his boots, the curtain of the cabin billows
fair winds and following seas.

How another child in another time finds a soldier leaning up against
a fencerow. Brains spilling. Still awake. She runs for help, holds
his hand. She asks his name. Writes his last letter home.

The matted underlayment matrix of strangling silences, sharp
implements, birthing babies, broken wagon wheels, and daily weather
reports.

This entwinement of toughness and sorrow, hunger, bounty, cut glass,
vases for Zinneas, and who knows which Neanderthal passed along
the love of stone and cool dark hiding places.

Coal under porches, mangling ringer washers, basement seepage,
Herbs dry up on the rafters, ball-jars line the shelves we feed
ourselves. We share what we have.

How the impoverished drunks and teetotalers, bible thumpers,
bellyachers, bigots in big hats, big hair, big dreamers watched from
windows, waited for rain, made do and kept digging for gold.

How breaking through the mangle of adventitious adventure in this
dark mother soil, tugging on the taproots makes a body strong
harbors songs. I kiss this dirt. Fall back in the grass.