soil not sand

Have made it now to the west coast.
Why, look at all these rocks.
If I were a geologist, I'd drool
(if my mouth were not dry).
This landscape homes the language of
'from dust to dust'
Were we once?
I always imagined us as soil, not sand.

an answer to the events of a rainy thursday:

a phone call, the gardener, and the first ever

gift of 'stay home this morning; i'll go in myself

and turn over the onions'

so now, books letters blankets

wet morning

it's difficult to imagine what will happen today,

this rain and yesterday evening's, all these weeds

to pull but not from mud, 

not from the wet leftovers of some previous month

it's easy, once away, to forget the grip of fields, how

they own us here, how horse nettle and pigweed snicker

and even purslane blows hot air around our ankles,

setting traps of inconceivable work days. three days of

virginia and my palm was reading tidy, what amendments?

what deficiencies? what sorting and planting and cultivating?

i was enthralled in social relationships and upper lips,

shoelaces and breakfast bills. 

now, back, we lean over our crops. 

the land group asked

the subtle bowhunter to triple his shots, peppers are

blushing, onions clipped, heavy, curing, and now, it's

raining, and where my feet touch, the soil will part into

two equal clumps of obligations and  necessities, only

fulfilled partially, the rest will wait till drier conditions.

august first, who remember rabbit rabbit

august

it comes 

and sits, stale and green,

like gingerale from june left

on the back railing of the boat's deck.

friday's harvest brought the finale of early summer cabbage and chard, well washed beets

and carrots, head lettuce separated and washed, lemon basil and thai magic, parsley (which

i can't help but find boring) and others, washed, sorted, in green and gray crates. lael and

sebastian are away in colorado for a wedding and the weight of the acres falls on the shoulders

of jacob and myself. we both worry we will be transformed into killing machines, mechanized

and tubed, due to our inexperience and independence. i fret over the green house, open and 

close it, open and close, peek in, open, glance, close. water, once? wait, two passes? 

jacob uses the tractors and rubs his head nervously with suspicion. wait, too close? too wet?

is it everything? nothing? of course, it's both, and if the two of us aren't careful, we'll pray to

the physical world alone and forget to bow to shadows as well, and the space between the 

objects and the shadows. those realms we make fists for, we water for, we weed.

the routine of the summer and the necessity for carefulness leads to urges of recklessness.

i want to take naps and work on the odd tan lines around my body. i want to take the hyacinth

car and drive to find jackie. i want to make mixed drinks for twenty people and read out loud

prose poetry, set off fireworks and then fall asleep underneath them, waking to confuse

fireflies with sparklers: stale, green, like gingerale, like august, in the palms of my two hands.

round about now

everything changed here in the garden a few weeks ago when the third apprentice, jessica,

threw down her water bottle and tendered her resignation in the heat of a friday afternoon.

we went on weeding the carrot patch, but her two hands were missing and we felt it as

we combed through the rows like slow, wet, manatees. 

simultaneously, two other gardeners left, as they had planned to, and over the course of

a few hours, we lost three helpers, six hands, sixty fingers to pull up the many weeds and

harvest the many summer squash and basil buds we have about our garden.  we did not

panic, but the garden sucked in its stomach collectively and we've grown tighter and

closer since then. 

the garden is comprised of many inhales and exhales. the main breath is sebastian,

our head gardener-farmer and lael, his wife, who conducts and plays the garden-oboe.

jacob and i now fill in the air about them as apprentices. the four of

us have slightly different pulses and therefore beat separately, often independently.

 in any given moment i may be leading in the goats, lael, watering the seedlings, sebastian, setting out irrigation, and jacob, spreading compost over recently tilled fields. in another flash,

lael will be digging beds for thyme, jacob spraying a preparation over the fields, i will

be weeding for tomorrow's harvest, and sebastian will be cultivating the sweet potatoes.

sometimes, we will all breathe together, while planting strawberries or sorting carrots.

sometimes, i'll look up and be alone in the peppers. sometimes, i'll be surrounded by 20

people, all pulling up pigweed from the raspberries, like birds about low tide shores,

bustling, shifting.

i work in a biodynamic garden. we view our land as an organism. it breathes as we breathe.

it's comprised of organs with their own sensitivity. it's not silly. it's sacred and science.

therefore, the metaphor of blood and oxygen works. how else would anything grow?

the summer is reaching its high point. sebastian said so over beers at the sly fox post work

last wednesday. i drank and wiped my wet mouth with the back of my hand. the sun was at an angle that i had to shade my eyes to see him, and even then, the small hairs about his jaw line shone individually golden and straight. 

at the height of the season, we must sustain ourselves. how do we do so? 

we inhale, then exhale. 

july has another two weeks, then comes the creature august, in an altogether different

colored coat. almost everything is planted in the garden and there is new help. 

carrie from washington dc has come for a week. anna, for longer. a new apprentice

arrives from germany at the end of august. 

the toads work too, eating up insects at night. 

at dusk, we free ourselves from the breath of the fields and come inside, bearing marigolds

and cherry tomatoes.

sometimes, i bring home these little weeds with these little flowers and photograph them

on my desktop fabric of blue, pink and white.

i think of the letter A and drink milk before i sleep at night. 

ready?

raspberries, carrots, beets, sunflowers, marigolds, chard, kale, spinach, head lettuce,

salad mix, asian greens, watermelons, turnips, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, beans,

blackberries, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupes, summer squash,

zucchinis, peppers, eggplants, onions, scallions, corn, winter squash, rutabagas, apples,

asian pears, wildflowers, bees, donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, and us.

here we go

let's try not to forget, folks, that life's building

and continuing, and we can pick to our heart's delight,

because more will grow in the place of those.

she said last night that at one point she looked down

and realized she was eating herself thin.

they all laughed when i suggested peace and health

could be the baseline, the norm, and we don't need

to strive but rather ease back into it.

when they finished laughing, she grew serious

and said 'that was called paradise and we mussed it up.'

but, from this perspective, the one bent down to

view budding cucumbers head on, pushing up

through vermiculite and wet potting soil,

we're fortunate enough to have the continuation

of peace to be, of creation, quiet.

life being moist, moving.