In which I personify my garden

I walked into Banana Republic today

wearing old gardening jeans

with dirt stains on the knees

and a faded t-shirt and

muddy sneakers and was

swiftly judged by the skinny-jeans-wearing

petite brunette store clerk

as she hung merchandise

on the clearance rack.

I held my nose in the air and said,

"I can wear whatever I want!"

(well, I said it in my head.)

My internal childlike defiance

made me smile.

I felt cheeky,

like the robins that hop boldly up the mulch pile,

looking for worms.

My garden 

does not judge me

for not having trendy jeans on

when I come to see her in the morning.

My garden

does not judge me

for wearing a ratty old t-shirt

that I have owned for six years,

and she also doesn't care that

I didn't fix my hair

or put on makeup today.

What is the judgement of a store clerk compared with

the grass in my flower bed, which

is cool and green

and moistly squeaks when I grab handfuls of it

out by the roots?

What is it compared with the stalks of iris that push

smooth and slender out of the red-brown clay?

Today, I dressed for

the most important person in my life

and it was not anyone

at Banana Republic. So,

she can deal with it.

I hope I didn't leave any tracks in the store, though.

I'd feel bad about that.

The Other Side of Spring

Yesterday I sat under a tree
holding a frightened baby bunny in my cupped hands.
It was so soft and warm,
a brown and grey ball of fur,
and it had such
sweet little floppy ears,
and wide bright eyes
and a little twitching nose.
It was a little wild rabbit
and the thrill of holding this tiny
snippet of wild life--wild
young pulsing terrified but quiet life in my hands--
it was profound.
It did not try to run away from me; it did not struggle, although it did
nibble on the tip of my finger with its tiny little teeth.
It could not walk.

I knew it was going to die.
My cat had dragged it by the neck into my kitchen with a
triumphant meow,
and I had caught up the warm panting little body,
and, locking my cat in my bedroom
(where she sat and howled at the door),
I took it outside to release it.
It did not appear to be wounded, there was
only a small puncture under its eye (it raised its little paw to its face
as if to explore the wound), but when I set it in the grass,
it flopped onto its side, helpless.

I got a cardboard box and put a towel in it and made the bunny a nest.
I placed the bunny in the box, and it did not curl up, it simply lay as I had placed it.
I thought, the humane thing would be to kill it.
But I can't do it. I can't do it, even though it's the best thing to do,
even though it's the kindest thing to do. I don't know how to kill anything.
I don't WANT to know how to kill anything. What would I even kill it with? A shovel?
A bucket of water and a sack? No, no, no, I can't do it.

So I made it a warm soft bed in a box
and kept it in my room where scavengers couldn't start eating it
while it was still alive. Where my beloved cat
couldn't get to it and play with it.
(Minka wonders why I've locked her out of my room all day.)

I check on the bunny several times during the day.
Its black eye is dim now and half shut.
It's motionless except for its shallow little breaths
that come rapid, rapid, rapid.
I stroke its tiny ears, and then leave it alone;
I know my presence only makes it more scared.
It won't be long.
I know what something looks like when it's dying.

Tonight I kneel under the tree in the dark
and dig a hole and put the cold little body into it.
This is the first time I've buried something--I mean done it myself.
I sob like a baby, desolate.
I think, why am I crying so hard? After all, it's just a bunny.
Just!
But . . .
I held it yesterday, and
it had such sweet, tiny little paws,
and such bright eyes,
and it was so alive
and so perfect.
It was the most perfect little thing,
so soft and warm and alive
in my cupped hands.

Oh, I don't understand.
Why are the most basic things
the hardest to understand?

Late Spring

Spring came late this year.
It was cold and gloomy on Easter,
like a day in late November,
and then the next week
temperatures rocketed into the high eighties,
leaving us perspiring in tank tops and shorts
before the first leaf was even on the trees.

Now, after a long warm up, a symphony of cherry trees
has exploded into concertos of pink and white,
the larks and thrushes are chirruping me awake
every morning through my open window,
and my little cat stalks the new clover of my front lawn,
searching for the small, furry critters she hears
scurrying under my porch in the night.
I fear she will find the groundhog which, I am sure, lives here.

The wind is now a breeze
and the smell of manure and fresh-tilled earth
rises up to me from the valley. I stand outside,
looking out on the farm land spread out below me
and at the hills,
which are turning a light, timid green.

I am not fooled by spring's slowness.
I am relieved to not be responsible for its progression.
I am happy to just be a part of it,
A creature in this new, green world, a creature
with as much power to rush spring
as I have power to spin the earth on its axis.

I marvel at my finiteness--and,
for the first time in my life--
thank God for it.

Oh the pleasures of the created,
the lightness of being for those
who are not responsible for the song of a thrush,
or the red-gold of the morning sun!