I begin the morning at my desk with
steaming coffee and hopes
that the press of cancer fatigue might abate
and not send me back to bed;
I read about those who
wept
while carrying their bags of
seed, to and fro,
and how they came again
with shouts of
joy,
carrying their sheaves.
Might there still be sheaves for me?
Friends want to fill my
weedy pots and plots
with flowers, so they come,
children and all,
with sounds of rakes and shovels
and brooms and wheelbarrows
and laughter and chatter,
tiny Jane with her ringlets carrying
her Mama’s phone filling
the air with pop music
and Harry with his thick glasses
waving his trowel asking,
“Where can I dig?”
Jackets are shed as sunshine and
strain warm our bodies
and spring winds cool
our sweaty heads.
Dirt, raw, damp, and rich,
smell of earth and sound
of shovel slicing through it,
seeds, so slight as like breaths,
put in the ground,
children believing.
After a hot shower and soap, I sit in
my psychiatrist’s office
on cushy furniture,
the sound of birdsong flitting into the room
through a door ajar;
I spill realities of dread and fear and longing for God,
he speaks about detachment
from expectations
of how God might move,
in order that I might fall
more freely into the abyss
of his eternal love;
In my mind’s eye I see myself in
the near-future hospital bed
seen by God, held by God,
known by God.
Dusk settles in and I’m at a party,
our friend has turned forty;
white lights strewn
from house to trees,
winds from a storm
in the distance,
a corn-hole
tourney and
cheesecake
a mile high
precede
words of love
sown from every corner
of the back porch and yard,
pressed deep into our souls.
I carry my sheaves.