THERE WENT UP A STREAM FROM THE EARTH, AND IT WATERED THE WHOLE FACE OF THE GROUND
i could find the cold love
of the earth beneath my back
and god smiling,
making promises
from the sky.
–Andrés Montoya
Sunday evening in August and spurge has invaded the basins
under my fruit trees, and now the nectarines
are demanding that I rid them of the weeds not by hula hoe
but by plucking them out so the seeds
parish in the green trash can beside my gate.
I’m ashamed, for the tree has fulfilled
the promises made by its blooms, but somehow,
I’ve still forgotten to tend to my yard,
which feeds me cucumber salad for lunch
and for dinner basil-sweetened marinara sauce featuring
lemon boy, goliath, black prince, Roma,
Zapoteca, and Mr. Stripy tomatoes—
all of them produced by my yard that has become
overrun by aphids, white fly, ants,
and rotten fruit fermenting on the ground.
“How has life come to this,” I joke,
but I’m also working as I lean over the dirt.
The muscles in my lower back want
to tie themselves into knots, but I go,
pulling out spurge by the bottom stem so that not
a speck of dust falls from the roots,
appeasing my heart overcome by the guilt of neglected chores
the way the weeds have overtaken the trash bin
that I have flipped open and left beside me
so I’m not alone in the early dark
where the dirt is now clean, where I rake the soil,
where now my dogs Buck and Moby
are with me and rolling on their backs under a Sequoia,
so I turn on the hose and let it fill
the basin under their tree, and now they are
digging in the mud and dunking their heads, and the mud
is honey dripping from their jowls–
their eyes reflecting nothing but ecstasy.
I take the hose and rinse the dust off of the nectarine leaves
until they shine under the moonlight,
drop the hose, let it fill the basin, and listen to water falling on water.
Under the nectarine tree the air is clean and cold,
and still there is the sound of water
falling on water, and suddenly I’m not myself: I’m not
the spurge, I’m not my yard being eaten alive by bugs, I’m not
my truck that needs an oil change,
this month’s $800.00 gas and electric bill,
the ulcerated malignant tumor that invaded my dog’s paw,
or my wife’s chronic migraines–
I’m wet leaves dripping into a basin brimming with hose water,
I’m sound rising up and touching the stars.