Mother and grandmother – in black and white like storks –
crouch between the ribs of our stubborn field.
Behind them, where the day draws its last line,
cows pass by like hours.

People here steal a sliver of time between the holidays
to fill the earth with seed potatoes.
The shameless wind keeps working
its thin-bladed saw
through their human bones.

To my grandmother, that strip of land
is large as life itself.
And after life, she has vowed before God
to work in the Garden of Eden.

A sly, dark weed has pricked up its ears.
Grandma and the weed trade silent glances.
Then she rests on a thick clod of earth
and counts her rows.

People bend beneath the burden of time
as cloud-shadows carve the fields in passing.
The Garden of Eden hangs overhead,
furrowed,
waiting for its sowers.