Shed, Asleep

A hundred years I stood
Sun and snow on my roof
Icicles dripping sharp
Snakes and ivy, grease and bolts
Planks and parts, bottles, tools
Once, a pony, whose old belly sagged
Almost to the grass tops
Taking shelter under my roof.
One by one the boards rotted
From the ground up
A scalloped edge starting
Where they no longer met the dirt.
Behind the dripline, a chipmunk highway
Powderpost beetles ticking a death watch.
Phoebes in and out; the furtive rustle of mice
Piling pignuts against a rainy day.
One day I lay down
Like a cow slowly, falling to my knees
Dropping the hindquarters last.
I lay against your trunk
You: sprung from a seed
Spat forty years ago
from a jaw long gone to dust.
May I rest here, lean on you
In the fine autumn rain?
Of course I may.
You're stuck here, too,
dropping apples small as a monkey’s fist
On my weary roof.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

Bleeding Heart, End of March

It is time to weed.
The grass has grown silently all winter
Sent white roots through daylily and columbine
Infiltrating, choking.

I lift it with a fork
And tear the roots from the soil.
Shake it free of earth and fling it
To the side, on the lawn.
Grass, I can slow down.



And there, red, unholy strong,
Comes the bleeding heart
Pushing up through damp earth
Curled and thick
Turgid spring, uncoiling.

I plant things around it
They always die.
Coralbells rot.
Columbines too.
Geranium “Happy Thought:”
Mush at the first frost.
And the bleeding heart carries on.

Why should this plant
Smother the butterfly weed
The lupine I loved so much
Drinking their water, stealing their light?
They’re gone, no trace of root or leaf.

I could dig it up
Banish it from my garden
But I've nothing to replace it with.
Without it, there would be a space.

In the perfection of its own vigor
It pushes upward.
Stand clear.

3/28/07


3/30/07