Early Spring
By Samuel Wharton

How I know: how anyone knows:
the sprawling sweetness
of horse manure in the garden,

young caladiums swaying in
their shaded dread, red as heart’s blood.
Jilted jasmine the white-

starred. Jumping spider
this and jumping spider that
and the long wolf legs

of the wisteria. Start digging—yes—
test test test the earthly light.
Fence-climbing creepers,

crow’s fodder. Birds inch
by inch towards their new feeder,
wanting to know, wanting

to know what exactly
it is they desire. In the dirt, rusty nails
beyond number, bottle caps,

shattered headlight glass. Fungal
protrusions. Please, zinnias,
take root: thus speak my truant

gloved hands in their signing way:
shape this, tamp that, leave
a two-inch ring of standing water

to soak slowly down down
down into the final place
in any gardener’s universe.

Back to Contents