petrichor

This time of year that room is not much visited.
Its herringbone-patterned floor of worn bricks
tilts here and there where rodents have made inroads.

Homemade flats lie heaped in corners; stacks of cells
lean sleepily together; insulation dangles;
tools hang, festooned with webs and dust. Sometimes

when the door has been set ajar, a towhee wanders in,
becomes confused at light from so many windows,
beats itself silly, then rests, is eventually found

and shown the way out. There's not much
an old lady can do but wait, watching for
earlier suns to rise, for petrichor*,

for that sudden dislocation brought on
by stepping into sunshine by a southern wall.
Then, after one jonquil blooms by way of

affirmation, she'll step in, rearrange things,
dust her work bench and stool, bring seeds,
open the soil bin, grab a pot, begin.


__________________________________

*The odor of dry earth moistened by rain.

weather is a thing

Weather is a thing, now, she tells herself,

Every day surprising -- week, month

And season. When, whether and what

To plant, or how to schedule visits with

Her friends or family, across a pass or

Even in lowlands. Storm clouds will

Roll in, blizzards, fire, a tornado. She



Is sure there's easy weather somewhere

Such times as freezing fog, wind, or



A heatwave shuts her in. She'll admit



There are good days for her yet

Here beneath her patient apple trees.

If weather is a thing, so is simplicity.

Never waste a calm day, she says:

Go see trilliums, bespeak beargrass,



Nod to daisies, curtsy to wise willows.

On such days, forget falling trees and hills,

Water rising. Love life while you can.

decembering in the orchard

All that is left is the Granny Smiths; she 
Loves that they cling to their shivered tree,
Leaves long gone. Even the hens have left off

Trusting the sky to toss them sugar, and
Have retired to their tractor, pecking
At storebought feed in its styrene bin.
The winds whistle through, rasping 

Ink-black twigs together; the apples nod and
Stub their green bellies. She

Lifts ten or so down, as if they were 
Each one of her own breasts, tenderly
Filling her small basket. In the kitchen
They will sit shyly waiting their turn:

It is the season for other foods; in 
Stoneware bowls, nuts and citrus

Talk among themselves in distant tongues.
Here her hands make outland meals,
Even finding work for lemon skins.

Granny Smiths are not much favored,
Really, by her guests; in festive mood, if an 
Apple is desired, they'll reach for waxed,
Not thinking of that one tree, struggling
Night and day to keep for them fresh joy. 
Yet she knows she cannot blame them;

Shy apples do their best in pie.
Moonlight limns the fruit she did not pick;
If some green globes remain at large tonight,
The morning light will prove, tomorrow,
Holiday for those that cannot buy.
Squirrels and towhees will know what to do.

or otherwise

Beets are a thing, she mused; all summer
Every seed she'd planted out refused
Every opportunity to sprout, but 
Those in flats thrived, just as those
Seedsmen told her they would not.

As for after they were transplanted, well!
Rare was the beet that was not found by gophers.
Even so, some were left not quite finished

As the gophers waddled away, and

Those she was grateful for. She brought in
Her greens; made wilted salad; then
In winter came across again the muddy half-moons.
Nothing is better than gifted beetroot steamed,
Gopher bitten, she told herself, or otherwise.

what to do with leaves

What to do with leaves, if one cannot leave them

Here beneath aspen, gum, maple and birch

As what they become in winter, a kind of skirt

To warm and feed fanned roots, is gather and



Toss them on a garden. She spreads hers

Over bed and path alike, with straw, with



Dead grass and weeds, barn bedding, the contents

Of kitchen bucket and tumble barrel, along



With any foliage that comes to hand, even prunings

If too small to bother with for her iron stove.

This is for worms and all their small companions

Heaving aside the earth of path and bed alike,



Leveling and loosening, making untilled tilth.

Evening comes and she stills, listening

As the city of humus thrums toward spring.

Very likely it's best to interfere not
Even this much in things, she tells herself, yet

She's always loved to tell her children: eat.

what to do about trees

What to do about trees, for she had room:
Have an orchard. But isn't that thinking
About twenty years ahead? So she went
To the tool room for her spade in November;

Took that and four apple saplings down
Onto the flat by the road, and began. Years she

Did this, working up and around the rise
Of better ground. Pears, cherries, quince

Abounded, but the plums got blight, and had to
Be started over. She was too old to harvest
Or even get shade from nut trees, they're so slow;
Uncoupling crop from objective, she anyway set
Them out, along with the rest. Last, she

Thought of mulberries. The hens could have
Really used those. Oh, well. She ordered,
Even this late in life, and planted once more,
Even as those old hens looked on amazed:
Something to offer folks not yet alive.

the rhythm of the work

The rhythm of the work is to set down

Her padded bench, a flat, and trowel at the

End of a bed and drop as if in prayer,



Reach for the trowel (bent for her old

Hand at right angles), dig, then grope for a pot.

You may see each hole is deep and wide enough

To exactly take the root ball. She carefully

Holds this in her shade, tips the damp

Mass in, packs with trowel, repeats all -- three



Or four times -- then stands. Behind her, some

Four plants glow green in any six feet of bed.



The rhythm of this work, when best, resembles

How monks or nuns in supplication glide

Easily to the floor, centered, unconcerned



With body or mind, then rise, then glide again,

Outcomes not sought, nor merit earned.

Right to the end of the bed she goes,

Kneeling to simply do with her rough hands.

just about

Just about her favorite thing is to

Unseal bright papery packets and

Set out flats of germination soil

The length of her bench, then scratch in parallel



Along each flat, with a stick, five lines for seeds.

By and by, the covered infant sprouts appear;

Or don't, in which case repeat until satisfactory.

Under her grow lights, not great ones, but good enough,

The seedlings make two leaves and then two more:



Here she makes more flats, with this time in

Each flat eighteen pots, filled with dampened

Rooting soil. A hole in each pot waits



For one tiny plant; the soil to be pressed

Around the taproot and tiny rootlets, then

Very gently watered -- from below, pouring

Over the flat's lip a tea of comfrey.

Really she overdoes it, making hundreds,

In every kind, of vegetable starts, far more

Than she can plant, but is fine with that; most

Everyone she knows will willingly give them homes.



That's her means, in old age, of making

Happen a kind of revolution. There are 

In towers far away, those who would 

Not have us eat what will not make them rich.

Go, little plants! Feed free souls free food.

 

more than luck

Padding along among roots and stobs in shade,

I take the north-slope path to see old friends:

red huckleberry and mountain hemlock 



subsisting on nurse logs amid moss; vanilla 

leaf, false Solomon's seal, sword fern, bracken,

sorrel, twinflower, wild ginger, salmonberry,



maiden-hair fern, ninebark, viney maple.

They seem well; it's steep shade and deep

mouldering duff. Enough rain has alighted



upon this slope for centuries to build tall firs,

straight cedars, twisted, hoary, wrangling maples.

Yet the riverbed below seems troubled, shrunken.



Stones I never see have suddenly shown

themselves, shouldering past dried caddis cases

and empty snail shells, standing in desiccated air.



Here no trout hide from tiring current,

awaiting mayflies. No osprey hovers above,

awaiting trout. The river has shifted from



its bed, lifted past every thirst, and gone

to fall somewhere in the world as flood.

A slug has blundered into dust in broiling



sun and is in trouble. Not one for caressing

slugs, I break two twigs for chopsticks, and move

the mollusk to, I hope, a better place.

In fellow feeling I expound to the slug
my sunstruck orchard, panting flock,
failing well and kitchen garden hard as ice.


We'll all of us start shifting soon, I tell it,

as ants shift from a burning glass. From here on

you and I will need what's more than luck.

there are rooms

There are rooms in a life that may sometimes
Have someone in them; but they are guests there.
Even when one most loves, one may find,
Really, a solitude that begins at this wall,
Ends at that wall; the rest is not entirely ours.

As years turn and suns, moons and stars
Rise up and fall like rain by every window
Even one's hands will shrivel soon enough

Right at the ends of one's arms, as hands
Of strangers. But to fret at this discovery
Of emptiness arrived at and emptiness 
Made clear by moon's dance with water,
Sun's dance with dust, by endings never sought

In even that one room that is one's own, is
Not worthy of even that we call our life.

All our guests deserve from us restraint.

Little enough we can offer them as it is;
In a short while each vacates each room,
Feeling for the light switch as each goes.
Evening comes. Do not grieve the door.

wassail

In August, but this year in July, Gravensteins:

golden fleshed, generous, kind to cook,

ciderer and ring-dryer. She tries everything,



but mostly butter: a large crockpotful

of peeled rings, quartered, lightly cloved,

cinnamoned and nutmegged will make



six pints and one short jelly jar. After

that, the old Egremont Russet, Cortland,

Honeycrisp and Jonagold come all together;



what can she do but slice them all in quarters,

toss them into her dedicated shredder,

pour pomace into a burlap bag



and hang that, with her father's pulley

and old hemp rope, to a maple branch?

Juice will run for hours, collecting



in a tub beneath; at evening she dips gold,

pouring through filter and funnel into quarts --

forty-five glass jars or more, most years.



Last, she'll think of cider (but not too much),

making in a cool jug by adding wine yeast.

In seven days or less she will sing to trees.

more than she

Rattling around in her potting shed once
she came across packets five years old;
had not heart to toss the things away.

Popping the lid from an empty parsley shaker,
she tipped the packets' contents in and stirred.
Ten flats she sowed at random with this mix,

come March, that first year; a month earlier
thereafter, as springs grew warmer. Bits of green
appeared, some here, more there. She'd prick out any



that went to a second pair of leaves, and give them

each its own square pot. What might they be?

Some Red Russian, curly or Lacinato



kale, some radishes, turnips, beets. Six kinds

of lettuce, collards, cabbage -- Dutch or red --

some spinach, also chard. Carrots, kohlrabi



and parsnips never showed, but she allowed

enough's a feast. Those that proved up
were hardened off in April, then set out

in beds on a grid, each as its turn came next
from the flat. That shaker lasted half a garden
half a decade. Nothing the catalogs

had taught was even tried. Whatever she thought
they'd said to do with seeds, well! The seeds
knew more than seedsmen, and much, much more than she.

learning to walk

It's not that she hasn't been doing this all along:
She'd walked to school as yellow lozenges, oozing screams,
fumed past her along hot asphalt. She'd splashed the creek,

anxious for a path, then built it herself, kenning
to use her father's axe without lost blood.
She'd walked from Springer Mountain north, chatting in

her offhand way with bears, a big cat and a ghost.
She'd walked the halls of academia and then the hills,
big ones, bringing seedling trees to snug up to

the raw stumps of firs machines had eaten.
She'd walked to a job for decades, block after block
of homes with eyes of black glass inching

past her tired, angry shoes. Now, late in life,
she keeps a small dog bereft by her parents'
breathing stopped. The dog has taught much:

when to stop and sniff; how to attend with one's
whole being the business of squirrels. Bound
by the leash, that necessary thing, they two as one

take in, absorb, imbibe, inhale, entaste
all the arriving and leaving of living things. 

heart of the world

She's not much for recipes. The bowl sometimes
invites her, and she oils it, cracks a duck egg 
or two, throws in a bit of stock or well water,

maple syrup and leavening, and says to it:
sit there and I'll be back with something for you.
"Something" might be a beet leaf, or an apple,

or a spray of young mint -- once it was a whole
handful of chives. Chopped and thrown in,
the whatever might vanish under oats or rye,

buckwheat flour, or crumbs from the last loaf,
and then salt -- late, so as not to insult the yeast.
Last, she may tug the spelt barrel from beneath

the counter, and dip a porcelain bowl into
the cool brown powder five -- six -- seven 
times. She stirs the makings between heaps

with a pair of chopsticks. Never quite
the same thing twice! In summer she'll oil
a crock pot and turn the lump in to bake;

in winter, a Dutch oven. In either case,
the secret is prop the lid onto a chopstick,
letting a little steam out over time.

The end is not the prettiest bread you'll ever see,
nor the best tasting, she'll admit. But slice it,
add a little butter to it still hot,

and sit, eating slowly, in a western window
as the sun goes gold, then falls. Are you not
now the grace at the red heart of the world?

the things to do

The things to do: bring an egg from her
Hens, a found apple, beet leaf, cat's-ear foliage,
Ensuring freshness even in October.

The skillet she heats, oil frisking.
Here's egg: break yolk, turn once or twice;
Insert chopped fruit and greens, with salt and pepper;
Now turn again, wait, remove from heat,
Give all to a spelt wrap. As she sits to her meal, a
Sun rises, invests her eastern window, spills in

To caress and warm six thick maple boards
Of her grandmother's table. Whatever remains to be

Done's already forgotten: the meal an emblem
Of all her morning cared to be.