First New Moon Planting

The sky hangs pearled, opaque curtain
woe held at bay. I dodge between practicing
faith one minute, ignoring the unseen
the next. How else to navigate the dark--
hilled beneath the white that pours past
my view, plant a field cradled in my palm,
spilling across lifelines.

Tonight the moon breaks free from darkness.
Today, I carry another season; stained canvas bag
in hand, ushering in spring with envelopes full
of seeds, marked with exotic names like galactica,
perfection, merveille, lined up in battered cartons,

grain traced to ancestors,
specks bequeathed as wedding gifts,
embryos stowawayed on backs
of bovine, matted on sheep, eyes mad
by the long voyage over seas that lurch.

Puncturing snow, my footprints bruise
a mud path to the plastic greenhouse
where I choose to birth thousands,
knowing what it is to set the almost-
invisible in place, cover, water, watch,
wait on the earth, heavy with promise
of seeds unfurling.

Poetry and farming are surprisingly similar art forms, executed in lines, requiring long hours of labor with attention to detail and sensuality. The lines of a poem and the rows of a field are both dictated by the seeds planted, whether the seed be a passed loved one’s memory or a tomato seed. What grows between the lines is as important as what grows in the lines. In both poetry and farming, I spend as much time pulling out what I don’t want, as I do tending what grows.

Whether digging in soil or in the psyche, digging is hard work, but the effort in both poetry and farming is balanced by the improvisational nature of the work. There are rules to follow or break. I never know where a poem will lead or how the weather will change my plans. In farming, I toil at what nature does easily, and in poetry I work at the ephemeral by attempting to embody time in language. I rely on faith for the unseen to unfurl. I strive for words generous like the earth, supporting life and receiving death.