Cultivating Innocence 

Look at all that shapes this garden. 

Is this bliss naïve? 

I give my troubles to the soil, work  

them out with sweet dirt clinging  

to my fingers. With each rooty  

gnarled thing hope gets planted. 

Walls and happy schemes take root.  

Leafy ceiling louvred to blue sky. 

Pear and apple trees thicken, put on fruit—   

years we’ve waited to consume a local juice. 

I water with fragility perched  

on my shoulder, chirping drought and doubt. 

But look! See! A robin  

cocks his head,  

hears a silent worm, 

makes a knowing grab. 

Pulls, pulls, pulls until the ground’s release.  

I would be as he, indifferent to possibility. 

All this homely ground gives to me, I’ll seize. 

I’ll tend this life, steadily spade, naïve.