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Gardener's Friend
I was forking the soil
Ready for vegetables
To sow from packs of seed,
Sweat filmed my spectacles,
Wiping them on my shirt
And replacing them
I saw a robin on the earth
That I'd just dug over,
Looking around, taking a step,
Pecking in mimicry of me.
A robin at the apex of a lineage
Of robins, or whatever came
Before them, like me in that,
And also that we both were
On a similar mission,
As of all that grew around us,
For sustenance of some sort.
I could have pitied what it
Didn't feel the lack of,
That it wouldn't need
To dress up for a party,
Or visit an art gallery,
Or send its fellows
To that round white thing
That hangs in the
Branches of the night sky.
But I could see
It didn't envy or pity me,
All my work was pointless,
It might have thought,
If I left off for one summer
The wild weeds would be back
And a wilderness was
No good for me, but for it,
Well it could cope with that.
No, it darted its eye at me
Then down to what it was
There for - and there was something
Right about its simplicity.
I hefted my fork again
Digging with new strength
In each downward push,
A new rhythm in each
Turning of the tines
And what their pecking
Uncovers from the soil
Of bugs and worms,
Thinking all the time
Of when I'm done
And of the nest I'll fly up to.
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