The Middle Way

Entropy. Cartilage has vanished from between
long leg bones, and I have become
dependent; may I have some help please
with these pants, these socks, this clacking

knee brace, this burgeoning heaped skunkish
laundry full of everything that leapt from
the spoon onto my clothing, this tea welling up
somehow from my cup's brim to spread across

the tidal flat of my shaking hand and fill
the sea cave of my sleeve? Huh, and if
last night's frost has subsided enough,
perhaps even with such a day's beginning

I can hope to step into these two unmatched
clogs and shamble on, past undone chores,
gathering up my left-hand stick and my right-
hand stick, and walk the dog. There is no dog;

what he left behind lies there: that small
basaltic stupa, littered with seasonal
offerings -- lately, deadnettles that wilt
in such hurry. But I call to him anyway;

he loved these walks so, that I feel obliged,
knee brace and all, to retrace our kinhin route
each weekday Armageddon fails to materialize.
Oaks throw shade; in summer I seek them,

in winter avoid. This is a ritual. As when I sit,
as when I chant, I know, even when tongue tied,
or falling asleep, or feeling my knee brace loosen and drop
just as I stagger into the ditch to avoid a truck,

that ritual is a kind of living being, made up of
my life and also the lives of all who participate
in some way, such as: "are you going to 'walk
the dog?'" Yes. "Have you got some water and

your phone?" Yes. "Okay; if you're not back
in an hour, I'll come looking for you." I bobbled
the Heart Sutra this morning, as I always do,
but this little exchange of hearts is itself

the Middle Way. Along the road, taking tiny
steps, tinier every year, I stop
to watch a robin angling for its worm.
The little dog that isn't there

wags his universe of tail.

 -- shonin

some things will

In a garden's grave, life remains: beets 
Never pulled may be pulled now, to boil

And put back, for the flock to discover;

Greens have carried on and are taken
And dehydrated, or left for the goose to strip; 
Red highlights show missed tomatoes;
Dense thickets of dead vines give beans. 
Even the weeds, that had defeated her,
Now yield rich heads of seed for hens.
She walks about, coat-wrapped, scanning

Ground for spuds rolled out by hen feet. 
Rarely, rewardingly, a ripe winter's squash 
Awaits discovery. Gone to seed last year, 
Viable chard and kale erupt now
Even as it were March, and are welcomed.

Little remains of her apple crop,
If the early varieties are to be believed, 
Filling the cellar as they have, and
Even the kitchen cabinet, with sealed jars.

Rummaging round the orchard, she spies, 
Excusing themselves for tardiness, a 
Mighty wall of Granny Smiths. She might 
Avail herself of them, but her arms ache. 
In winter one wants rest. She turns
Now houseward. Her hands hope 
Some things will wait for Spring.

what rain is for

The last three summers, as she recalls them, 
Her heavy-clay bit of earth opened hexagonally; 
Into the depths she stared, seeing dry darkness 
So desiccated, she fancied worms and millipedes

In despair had decamped, seeking other worlds.
She poked at crevasses with her stick, finding bottom

Well deeper than twelve inches. Not knowing 
How to garden in any but a rain forest, she 
Attacked books and websites for some scheme 
The budget could be stretched for: shade cloths,

Raised beds, huge-log hugelkulturs, keyhole beds. 
All were possible, but her hands, old, worked
In fits and starts; her money allocated elsewhere. 
Now she startles, looking at her night sky, so steeped

In stars all summer, finding it black and close. 
Some drops, like bad boys' spitballs, carom off her

Face. More, and now she's happily drenched in her 
Old nightgown, dancing slow circles. Autumn proves 
Real at last. This dance is what rain is for.

see it through

One should not have an orchard and 
Not care for it; so she tries,
Even lurches from the depths of a chair

She's found at some thrift, pre-softened; from 
Her house, warm or cool as she might wish, 
Out into too much sun or too much rain; from 
Under the kind roof of a porch she'd built, 
Leaving tool after tool there to gather
Dust and webs, marks of a new will to

Neglect. Beyond the weed-bent fence, an 
Orchard of sorts awaits her care, each 
Task having skipped two years at least.

Hands grasp lopper and saw. She visits 
Apple, quince, pear, plum, cherry, clipping 
Vines, tall weeds, watersprouts, suckers; 
Even designates branches for her stove.

As the forenoon warms, she strips off 
Now her hat, next jacket, shirt and gloves,

Old skin offered to thorns, thistles,
Rough bark. Really she'd meant to hire it done, 
Children of neighbors being short on cash. 
Habit, she could call it. Habit, and the way 
Apples come best that see right sun,
Ripe enough to pay her for some pains.
Do a thing yourself to see it through.

election

She drags her rusty kneeler as way opens 
amid plants knee high, wetting her blue 
trousers in dew, as clouds decide

to open or not, as the morning star 
recedes and hides itself, with a sliver 
of new moon, in day. Poppies

have not yet awakened, nor daisies.
She kneels and kneels again, eyeing 
potato vines, chard, kale, spinach, beets

to see are they hiding pretenders beneath 
their skirts: thistle, geranium, nipplewort, 
even nascent blackberries, ash trees, an oak.

Most of all, she seeks out bindweed, a long 
vine snaking from place to place, climbing, 
smothering fruitful things. She knows

she's prejudiced, but her rationale is: 
bindweed's not for eating; raspberries are. 
Her hands elect who dies, who lives today.

too soon

 

These are not the tomatoes she wanted, 
Heirlooms such as Cherokee Purple, or 
Even Brandywines. But the clerk only
Sells what's brought in, finds labels, wands 
Each three-inch pot through as she would

A bag of chips or box of three penny nails. 
Really, the old woman muses, I should have 
Ended my day at the seedsman, but it's not

Near here -- what, twenty miles? So I've 
Opted for the discount store again, to buy 
These things that hurt my soul: hybrids.

There's this about them, they do produce 
Heavy fruits that please her folks and friends 
Easily enough, and in larger numbers. But

To her there's something in them lacking. 
Old varieties taste of the eyes of young 
Men, of weeping, of laughter, of
A child's anger at being teased, of
The confusion of having one's braid pulled. 
On the hybrids she can't say as much.
End to youth, beginning of sameness; a 
Safety that came to her too soon.

at her western window

At her western window, she's stitching.
The needle pricks her sometimes. She moves

Her hand aside to not bleed on silk.
Even as she works, her waxed thread in
Rows appearing like commas, she sees a

Western meadowlark pounce in tall grass
Ever growing, unmowed, outside. When
She stops, peering over thick lenses
To note the meadowlark has a grub, to her
Ears come, faintly, short songs of its mate.
Reaching for her scissors, she snips a tail,
Nudges it out of sight behind a stitch.

When this row is done, she'll ask her mate
If it will do. If not, she'll turn her mother's
Needle and pull thread, loop by loop 
Down to the place her mind wandered.
O meadowlark, I must look away!
Wonder does not always aid one's work.

how she knows

How she knows she is not useless yet:
Old cornstalks must be shattered right
Where they stood green, to feed worms

She knows are waiting in darkness.
Her hens wait too, for water, for feed,
Especially for deadnettles, nipplewort,

Kale and comfrey. Some hummingbirds
Now arriving check the lilac for their
Own nectar bottle that hung there
While last spring, summer and fall
Slipped past. There are wasp queens

She finds sleeping in her woodpile;
Her heart skips a beat as she sees
Each one, for she fears them, yet

Interests herself in their rest and
Safety, for the good they do her garden.

Now she mucks out her barn, for
Of her things she values rich mulch, almost
To distraction, most. But slowly;

Under beams and eaves hang cobwebs,
Sacs of eggs suspended in each, waiting
End of winter, not to be disturbed.
Lest she forget to serve all equitably,
Every bucket of soiled barn water
She carries to her trees to tip out: 
Something to stave off drought.

Yes, she's earned the right, she thinks,
Even in this so solitary place,
To call herself an asset to her friends. 

spring springs

Spring springs upon her unawares;
Perhaps she thought snow would drift
Right up to her window, as it should
In February, as in her memory
No such month escaped some white.
Going forth in a sleeveless shift

She pockets up seeds for flats,
Pulls out dank bins of soil,
Reaches for small pots, sets hope
In light. Such April ploys are
Not to be counted on, she knows --
Guessing random frosts
Still may spring upon her unawares. 

what was hers

What was hers, but is not hers just now,
Having suffered a rising tide of voles
And other rodents (she does not doubt), is
The potting shed/solarium, a domain in

Which she'd reigned, she thought, for decades.
All of it, she'd built herself. Gathering
Slats of rough hewn barn wood, windows,

Heaps of antique bricks, a long green bench,
Ever more pots and flats, bins and trowels,
Royally she'd treated herself to her heaven,
Seedlings doing as she'd have them do.

But then: disaster. Peas and beans tucked
Under skeins of soil vanished by ones and
Threes -- whole flats of corn plowed up.

Is there nothing to be done, she wonders,
Short of slaughter by nefarious means?

Not the first option. She casts about among
Old tosswares in corners and on shelves.
This rolled-up screening might do. Shears in

Hand, she measures as one measures cloth,
Ever minding the selvage, to create caps
Rodents might decline to chew.
Slipping these into place, adding to each

Just one stone per corner, using
Up the Buddha cairns she'd made
Stacked here and there round the room.
The precept honored, she waters all,

Not neglecting to sprinkle stones.  
Outcomes must be as they must be.
We find well that find we do not reign.  

it begins

It begins with mare's tails: wisps of ice

That spread, ghostly fingers from



Beyond the southwestern horizon; her 

Ears feel the chill as she is planting bulbs.

"Go inside," her chapped hands urge her,

"Inside, your steaming kettle waits."

"Not yet," she replies. In her mind's eye

She watches thousands of daffodils bloom



Where grass grew. She must plant hundreds

If her dream will breathe. Altocumulus,

Those clouds like schools of fish, arrive.

Her hands are hurting her now; cold clay



Milking moisture from gapped skin.

As she bends, shovel in one hand, 

Round brown balls of life in the other,

Each destined for a hole along her fence,

She senses wind lifting skirts of



The cottonwoods and willows. Raindrops

Are arriving now, slanting through trees,

Investing her sleeves and hair with wet.

Leaving off at last, she, crutching on her

Shovel, pivots to her tea, her fire.

that time

That time when there is yet nothing,
Her skills being at rest, synchronized
And sympathetic with soil's sleep --
Timid buds of lilac or jonquil still

Tucked within themselves -- she wonders
If she's even a subsistence woman, is
Mistaken in that as so much else, as when
Even deep snow cannot efface what

Winter erases when it is nearest spring.
Her hands stretch to packaged seeds;
Enter into bargains with their quietude.
Now? Now? Now? Now? she asks them,

Though she knows they will not move.
Here by a cold window she spreads
Envelopes on her table: peas, beets.
Radishes will be first, nearest the house.
Even now she smells them, lifted, bitten.

Is there nothing that can be done?
She asks for the hundredth time.

You'd think the mud would dry a little,
Evenings come later, mornings earlier,
The birds nest and sing, daisies open!

No. Tools rest in their ranks, sharpened,
Oiled. Clouds pass, low, lightless, sulking.
The arbor's done, fences, orchard, 
Heaps heaped. All she needs today
Is that this blank month turn a little
Nearer sun, before her plot of earth
Grazes on forgetfulness too soon.