First, the smell of red-brown

clay moist of earth

a column

thick so thick

we want no air to penetrate

this heft and dense

no bubble forming

undermining.

Knead, then,

ask this clay elastic

to know your hands

the dough and stone of them

pushing back and together

the palms cradling

the whole hand lifting

and sinking pressing

repeating the song

the bowl of your body

quietly forming.

Sometimes I want nothing

but to stand boot-deep in spring mud,

to poke around the flower beds

in the chill April air,

to listen to

this heaving subterranean

gardener at work

on the seasonal meanings

of seeds and bulbs and roots

and the wordless awakenings

and the perfect beginnings of things.

I cry easily these days,

sleep lightly.

Has life always been this sweet?

Or is it because it is barely spring

and through the cold rain and salt,

in the most improbable

and in some of the desired

places hard green shoots

the tough bulbs of April in Maine

are finding their way back?

I remember, watching them,

the long nights spent waiting,

the despair that comes

from living

where things really die,

where one need not feign surprise

that tender-lipped violets

are resurrected

from the frozen land.

The garden is ragged with

crumpled leaf heaps

and straw mulch pushed aside by

the rubber knights of tulips

the spongey knives of narcissus.

The accumulation of cycles

looks in April like unmeshed gears

and broken bones.

In May it seems to work as if effortlessly,

like things that are never resolved

because they work,

work together,

have never stopped working.