Husbandry
Attention sways, can't fix
to anything.
Every morning he goes to his garden
barefoot, for the cold pleasure. Each day the beans
are taller, the wind
has flattened them against the wire
long enough for a tendril
to take hold
that the vine may climb
toward sunlight. All of it
as if by accident — as if untended: this row of lettuce,
this of beets,
a vagrant clump of weeds, a pile of cuttings. After all,
it's the ratty ends of things
he finds attractive. Little room
to cultivate a life
or a wife.
To accept one's lot may be
to become a pillar of sorrow,
he thinks, but to be alone
is salt itself.
_______________
Mark Weiss
As Luck Would Have It
Shearsman Books 2015
photo ~
patrons of husbandry
