Year-End Review

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YEAR-END REVIEW


Would you know this too as love: 

the sour stain that clippings give 

the air after the second mow this week. 


That this year I tried to teach

myself to garden, thought of you 

as fingers prayed over the new


sprouts yanked from womb to world. 

That I care more about the world

with you in it, notice the life of trees 


on our suburban block—that, if slowly, 

I have moved away from herbicides. 

Or even how I leave you inside 


with your mother, or with my body, 

sitting with you there on the nursery 

floor. It is not to be away from you,


or be alone. It is to sit in the slow 

pulse of presence, to better know 

what is bigger, how best to introduce you.


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