I water
heirloom tomato plants
until the garden is as wet
as if after a day of showers.
Yellow blooms, wiltled leaves,
immature tomatoes revive.
When the pink and yellow
tomatoes ripen,
I will invite you
to come and pick
a Walmart bag full
to take home with you.
Maybe,
by then,
Corvid-19
will be conquered
with a vaccine
and we will sit
on the front porch,
watching the sun
go to sleep
and a full moon
waking up.
country sounds
comparatively are different
cows, birds, roosters
the wind blows, unabashed
only trees stand in its path
oh, and the occasional house and or barn
cars rarely pass and people not seen nor heard but for a wave hello
no one is yelling in the street
no fireworks or motors except the tractor baling hay late into the evening
everything for a purpose, no energy wasted
quiet is underrated and I am unsure why I often yield to noise
These protests
w i l l b e
parades some day.
Can’t you see?
if we truly knew
equality and
stood for love
d a i l y
we would never even
need parades and
humans could just
b e happy.
it is weird to think the moon and stars
can be seen from any direction
even when leaving a place
that is more of a home
than your own.
Worried about the garden, we enter its paths without a plan.
Everything to see, nowhere to be. The total absence of need.
The garden worries our plans. Nowhere is without absence.
We need to see the paths as everything, as total.
Needing a plan is total worry. This garden will enter
the absence of everything, will be a nowhere of paths.
We and the paths garden our absence, plan to be seen
nowhere. Everything is without worry.
As we cross into the street, the dog pulls
against her leash to get to the fledgling
grackle. The bird hops away into the other
lane. We make a wide birth to give it room.
As we cross into the grass at the park,
the growl of an approaching vehicle makes
me turn. I shouldn’t turn, I know. But I do.
I watch the hopping, fluttering baby die.
I am from Kentucky.
My statement is a confession,
a confession made not to a priest
but to all citizens. I seek absolution
for my sin of residence, for being
from the state that every cycle
since 1984 — 1984! what irony! —
delivers to the national stage an actor
who exercises deviousness, lust
for power, and patent contempt
for the Constitution and the purpose
of government to uphold the common good.
Even though I have opposed him
in every election, I cannot help but feel
a burden of geographic guilt.
Dizziness to match a planet’s rotation
Rules with no purpose, just malice
Dust, impatience, and rain
Too many blind eyes, cold shoulders, and bystanders
And
To ignore the seas would let the air consume you
