Taproot

An afternoon in the garden
Yields swathes of disturbed earth
Heaps of vanquished weeds
An hour of sweet solitude
And satisfying strain.

Loam infiltrates and settles in,
Emphasizing lines on my palm
Life line, head line, heart
The way gravestone rubbings
Highlight the parenthesis of short lives.

Long life, straight head, forked heart
Divided allegiances, delicious tension
Between orderly beds of cultivated beauty
And the riotous tangle of opportunity.

The struggle is layered;
While blooms race toward the sun,
Roots knit blind boundaries,
Or send a thick tap deep, deep
Staking claim to the salt of the earth.

--july 07