This Garden

1.
in its first summer, I’m fighting
gravity and grass, plus
the sun so much fiercer in blessing
and insects unforetold

2.
my camouflaging clothes
made for errands, patio-reading
anything but weeding
require constant hitch and catch
on the tiny cartilage of rose-thorns
the ones I can’t see

3.
I’m not looking for much
beyond this silence but I say
next year all the greens go in boxes
next year a promise to myself
to my seedlings

4.
sacrificed to the spirits of wildness
(as far as they go in a finch’s song)
my orderly plans thrown cloudward
with not enough regret

5.
the back of my neck like old leather
even my wrists and feet
brown as long-distant childhood