Whatever, love, I wove once in the yard,
whatever I decided to forsake
in order to receive from up above
such blessings as this dormant earth might wake,
like rain, that blooming agent, thing that seeps
into the ground and coaxes out the grass,
elicits flowers, testifies to trees,
sides by the slow-in-growing things that pass,
in all their movement, all their sway and thrash,
all their longing, all their boom and bust,
become enduring things that quake and flash,
become the very essence of the dust.
I do behold now everything my hands
have planted in this garden come to naught.
O God or woman, tell me I shall last,
when all I have attempted has been lost.
01/12/2017
Richmond