My quarter acre

Forty-nine years ago: I stood

and sat on the university’s

parade ground to listen 

to speeches and presentations 

and wander around booths

and demonstrations.

What I remember: the sunburn.

Forty-nine years later: my patch

of earth is about a quarter acre

leveled down six feet to solid clay

(with zero organic matter)

and first called a lot, then gradually

changed with mulch and leaves

and organic stuff and topsoil and

cow manure and various additions

to manage the pH. Slowly it all

reassembled itself into soil. 

Things grew. 

Things still grow.

Except for dogwoods.

I killed more dogwoods than

I could count and finally gave up,

content to watch the neighbor’s dogwood

flourish across the street.

Clay became soil became gardens and

grass, which retreated as gardens grew.

Of the 63 rose bushes, four survived 

rose rosette disease. Bulbs came and

went; some stayed, bless their hearts.

Somewhere along the way I fell in love

with coleus and hostas, annual and

perennial.

What I learned: taking care 

of your quarter acre is hard work,

not unlike taking care of earth.

What I also learned: you have 

to keep at it, over and over and 

over.

During April, the editors of Tweetspeak Poetry have been hosting a 30-Day, 30-Poem Challenge for Earth Month entitled, appropriately enough, Poetic Earth Month. Today, the featured (and final) poem is an excerpt from Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems by Maureen Doallas. The poetry prompt is to wrote a poem about the making of you as a poet who cares about earth, self, and others.