Garden Prep

 

We do it every year — to celebrate

the rites of spring, the return of the weather

called life, the coming of summer’s heat

 

and insistent green, we kneel in the mud

and mumble our petitions to the great

spirit of the garden — we promise blood

 

and tell ourselves we’re helping, and the breath

of time insists we clear out last year’s crud,

decay, and everything that looks like death.

 

 

© Michael Fleming

Brattleboro, Vermont

May 2019

 

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