In the garden
it’s impossible 
to hold a death grip on any idea.
Thoughts irrigate the mind,
one enters another 
as the image of a neighbor boy holding
cut glass up to the yellow glint of noon
travels from morning news 
of deaths in Ukraine.
I dig out thistles.

After sifting the soil, 
careful with thoughts that may burrow like earthworms,
I replace their twisting from my palm
back into the wet earth, right 
beside the candy-pink petunia,
which is too perfumed,
uncomfortably sticky,
like the voice of the insecure 
high school girl I once was.

Older now, I know watering the Lewisia
that levity needs good drainage
and fireweed should be
left alone to lighten the mind,
which is a compost pile laced with eggshells.

I know it is here 
in the garden I can listen
to the day lily as she begins to speak in tongues,
and it is here I can begin speaking again.
                        

I go outside, look up at the sky
in a dark wakefulness 
of open black sky full of stars.
A delicate cirrus cloud-moth
covers the crescent moon and
I can see right through to autumn.