I have always wanted to live on a farm
embracing not the simple life
but the essential
dirt, hatchings, birthings, hardship, death, compost
compost for the soul
sweet grasses sweet trees
wildness and domestication side by side
sisters
the essential piling up like
the photos on the piano
carefully each month I pull them down
and dust them
moments lost to me
but heartache isn’t the piling up of the mulch
it is the spreading out
wheel barrow by barrow
filled
and cajouled up the hill
to be laid out
smoothing in the divots
smoothing over the flaws
time asking more of us
as our bodies become
less stable
our hearts
are filled
to bursting
