After David Baker
1.
Last night's storm drips from the redbud.
Droplets stutter in the morning breeze
and dot the patio, bedazzle the grass.
The rabbit's ears twitch when the blue jay—
screecher, dive-bomber, cat-chaser—
emerges from its nest in the pine
to forage among the perennials as
last night's storm drips from the redbud.
2.
In the shady corners of the garden, foxglove
thrives, pointing its purple way skyward,
towering over the spreading hostas, their
white-rimmed leaves. Their drooping leaves.
Beside them the rabbit trims the clover,
pink-white poms disappearing into her
rapidly working jaws. Sun on the grass.
In the shady corner of the garden, foxglove.
3.
I have so much yet to reconcile. Sun and shadow.
I wish I understood how to make a garden thrive.
How to account for the shifting seasons. Drought
and cicada emergence, the emerald ash borer.
Ten years of my brother's labor to green this plot
that draws the rabbit, a pair of cardinals, the jays.
Here, raised beds; there, a shade tree. Patient years.
I have so much yet to reconcile. Shadow, sun.
4.
How to account for the shifting seasons? Sometimes,
even in the face of care, things don't thrive. Rabbits
eat the hostas down to the roots, the jays strip bare
the raspberry bush. Blight migrates northward.
I wish I'd understood how long a root system takes
to secure the soil, how many seasons of growth pass
beneath the surface. Now, trumpet vine and rabbits.
Last night's storm dripping from the redbud.
