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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 ever dress
To go to 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, and
Then when I'm done
A nest to fly up to.
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