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.

ewes alike

chris is a fourth generation sheep shearer, 

who speaks in a shout regardless of environment,

as if always a bleet and the buzz of clippers were in his ear,

as if always he had to talk over a lamb, through the wool.

there was rain hitting hard against the barn's ceiling,

as we clammered over the ewes and grabbed one at a time,

a handful of sweater, 

the sweet odor of lanolin and fear.

now lambs and ewes are alike,

 same sized:

small and round bellied, 

bleating into the water,

into the spring.

one, thirty six, fifty

count trees

up to fifty,

then fifty more.

shake the red of cardinals

out from behind your eyebrows;

it's not needed there.

pigeon shoot take one

as soon as jacob got the 'go ahead,' he went:

steadying his aim on the barn's beam, raising

the gun, bringing down one of the many pigeons

that roost up in the eves, 

over our tractors,

over our tools. 

if i were alone with a pigeon that just

fell, single gems of blood which clumped

and beaded in the dust of the ground,

i would have spread out its wings 

in desperation and naivety, smoothed

and soothed its neck feathers, and placed

the bird somewhere in tall grass, to be 

found later by sankanac's cats, by tamed tigers.

rather, i wiped my nose and witnessed others

spring into action, elbows, forming Vs with

nails on chunks of raised wood, finding axe,

finding the head between two fingers,

finding a bag and the freezer, finding everything

ruffled, rumpled, nothing smooth, only finished.

groundhog fever

twenty bucks for a groundhog trapped,

thirty, if skinned.

i ride my bicycle past the green house over gravel,

sand, and thursday's percolated rain,

to check my trap of chickweed and chard:

green, yellow, pink stalks of deceit.

there's no sign of interest, only fresh claw

marks from the mound of earth by

the thin birch tree, by the creek, below the garden.

twenty bucks would buy me new toothpaste,

vanilla ice cream, two kiwis.

thirty, goodness knows.

every day i've waved and greeted the groundhogs.

these hands that hello now are

setting traps,

rearranging temptation.

so a cowboy walks into a bar and says...

sometimes working in the garden feels like going to a costume party

l.s. mother, upon hearing of his day trip to philadelphia,

instructed l.s. to wear 'sunglasses and a large hat.'

no one told me to wear mine, except the voices of reason and softness' sake.

'light is more important than the lantern'

nizar qabbani

but continue to hold it carefully!

for a careless swing will knock both

light and lantern out of your hands

and then you'll be singing of darkness

and the even more important empty