March 20

Sometimes dismay
the price of ownership—

this unruly garden
not soft or settled,but built up

with intent and too-rough edges.
Still, a weed can flower,

and sunlight descends again,
low, springy, rupestrine—

still, joy in organic geometries.
I pick out rocks

with a rusty trowel, an indigo jay
shouts out its indigo call,

but harbingers are tricky—
I don’t know know know

know know, either,
creating so many holes

and filling them all
with seeds the color

of bone, small teeth, life
to spring up from these

sharpest of shards,
from these committals,

small green tongues,
like benedictions—

stilled life, still, life, so go,
grow in peace.

OPTIONAL POETRY