Sharing
by Tom Lagasse
I
I will again press, with hope and promise,
seeds into the moist spring soil. Tenderly
Tamping Mother Earth so they will connect
with her and bring new life. Bent in
Supplication, I make my small offering,
nearly as old as humanity itself, to
the gods or goddesses of the three sisters,
the onion, the kale, the lettuce, and the tomato.
Accompanied by birdsong as if
they knew what was held in my heart.
II
The tender shoots rise
from their made beds.
There is enough for all—
rabbits, mice, beetles
And the few humans
have taken bits
To appease the driving
hunger that animates life.
Crows watch from atop
the dead ash tree.
I tear a few slices of the day-
old bread and toss them
Into the air like confetti:
a celebration of crows.
III
Enough has been taken
to feed us through spring.
The land and I are tired.
We welcome the shorter days
To lie fallow, to witness silence.
The garden, dun and brittle,
Has frosted into a boneyard
where spent sunflower heads,
Drooped like shower heads drip-
ping seeds. Dried bean pods twirl
On a trellis: A piñata awaiting
the strike of a sparrow’s beak.
IV
Snowy wasteland, the wind
whips crystals across the garden
which peck at my face. Lengthening
light: a time for hope against a stark
Reality. What appears as neglect
and insouciance: the unmade garden
Beds and alone the property’s boundaries,
the rolling woody bramble with dried berries,
Encrusted with ice and snow give a taste
of the wild for juncos, chickadees, rabbits
And squirrels. Mounds of bird seed piled on
cardboard are my widow’s mite for everything
Taken so this menagerie may survive in this
manscaped, denuded warming world.
My mother said if you want to love
the world, feed it.
PAINTING: Garden of Eden by Martiros Sarian (1904).
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I am never sure what will spark a poem—a journal entry, whatever I am reading, or what I see from the window near my desk. I have learned to trust an idea will come to me if I am open and patient enough. My commitment is providing discipline to the process, so I will try to spend an hour or two every day at my desk.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tom Lagasse’s poetry has appeared in Poetically Magazine, The Feminine Collective, Black Bough’s Poetry Freedom & Rapture and Dark Confessions; Faith, Hope, and Fiction; Silver Birch Press Prime Movers Series, Freshwater Literary Review, Word Mill Magazine, The Monterey Poetry Review, a half dozen anthologies, and more. He lives in Bristol, Connecticut.
Silver Birch Press 