garden haiku

Little sprigs push up through

dirt, hopeful, though nights bite

still, with hurtful chill.

Will these brave green threads

stretch root enough to weather

through to warmer days?

Once overbold, early

cilantro sprouts shrink down

again, chill-chastened.

I plant and replant,

hoping this batch, this time, will

last till green. Grow strong!

Poor system: to seed

but not to cherish. Little

sprouts neglected droop.

No salad spring, no 

summer squash. Hope untended

yields no fruit but rot.

Garden hungry, I 

have, bare handed, torn roots

of trees from clinging dirt.

Every year my plots

packed with good soil and seeds

sprout strong, joyful weeds.

I will be gardener

for insects. Spiders, squash bugs, 

wasps, and worms: welcome.

I'd bury myself

in sweet dirt, if I could, smell

the sun draw me up in leaves.

January

A new year: lungs unlocked

again, soft skies, a tender chill. 

My eyes released from frantic screens

to see again the beetle

goldbacked, gleaming

dart into dirt clods, 

brown grass grown winter brittle,

though the citronella

sprawls sharp scented green.

From a bud softened tree a mockingbird

sings for once, fluid, free

as sky itself,

breath opens into this world,

becoming new again,

bright and brave and new.

question

How is this world good? How right?

the best of all possibilities 

of being,

the only way to gather up the threads

of all these lives?

Shall all be well?

Lord, through what dark and bloodstriped door 

are we borne, wailing

into a life of grace?

Must it always be this: the crushing, and the grief?

Are we, altogether, so stained

that only death makes way for better life?

Is this faith? To ask, at last, that we be eaten up

by our own appetites, by our own wounds

to make a place for better life?

Is our painful death a gift for what comes next?

You Who demanded the children too

be consecrated 

to You in death

even the children, Lord, 

and the beasts,

You Whose Name is mercy--

You do not let us forget it, 

they are written into scripture,

how Your demands glittered,

unrelenting,

biting and breakable as teeth.

I would not see my people crushed,

our children lost--

Is there no healing? 

Is this our last best hope:

A god who sees, who holds each tear, and who ordains

no less pain

I make my claim

against your righteousness: 

I rest

my case.