Till

“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” –Genesis 3:19


My husband tells me of the garden

he plans to start when we have a yard

again: caged tomato plants, heads

of cabbage, deep-buried potatoes.


He wants to feel what is tangible,

to trade office work for ripe vegetables –

just as our grandparents traded fields

for work in the city, calloused hands

for smooth typewriter keys.


A generation reworking its days,

toward what has been lost.