poem

for Dad on Father’s Day

Your blessed economy,
Beloved sufficiency
Upon a small, dear place,
Sings with the morning stars.
Wendell Berry

In quiet hours underneath
the branches of the Lord’s own oak
and pine, you step while others sleep

into the world, awoken by
the barest dawn to tend to what
you love. The wildflowers dyed

in summer blue need water, and
the pecan, pear, and apple trees.
The grass needs trimming in the back

behind the bushes you have grown
to love more for their beauty than
their berries. Here you are at home:

where in the morning when the dew
has yet to rise the only sound is of
your steps, of windblown lilac blooms,

of early birds above your head
and honeybees about their work:
where everything is what it says

it is. There’s earth to add onto
the compost pile. There’s hay to haul,
and floors to sweep, and fence to move.

To do it all would take you more
than all the days the world has known,
and longer than you can afford

to spend alone — the dog must be
around here somewhere, quick to help
and quick to play, to make you see

the pleasure held in being day
by day of use to what has need
of you. And so again you wake

to dig up weeds, and throw seeds down,
to make your coffee and without
a sound to step out of the house

and go about your morning chores.
You feed the animals you keep.
You tend the pasture. And, of course,

you plant new trees: because what can
the Lord require of you but that
you furnish rooms and gardens in

the house of every love; and hold
your days in tenderness as best
you can; and make the world a home.

the art of folding laundry

Allow your mind to wander. Not
too long, and not too far away:
the task at hand requires just
as much attention as you give
it, but it isn’t helped by too
much thinking. Sit or stand before
the basket, back straight, breathing from
your diaphragm, and wait until
the pattern of the pile appeals
to you. Exhale. Inhale. Begin.

Pick up the shirt or shorts that are
the closest to you, or you like
the best, or wrinkle easiest,
and fold them first: in half, then thirds,
or halves and halves again along
convenient seams. When fabric wants
to lie a certain way, allow
it — coax, but never force, a fold
that does not want to be. Repeat
until the pile finds its shape.

Leave the socks for last, when there
is nowhere they can hide from you.
While pairing like with like, reflect
upon the symmetry of work
well done: if only for a time
much shorter than the trivial
perfectionist in us would like,
to fold an errant sleeve in place
can bring a kind of order to
the world, for this one week at least.

the thistle

It’s frustrating, isn’t it,
how beautiful the thistle flower is.

You spend all morning shoveling
up foot by foot the monstrous roots, grappling

with uncompassionately barbed
green branches, some as long as your arm,

that afternoon to see the one
you missed still standing upright like a Hun

on horseback after battle, cheeks
flushed pink with victory, opposed to neat

solutions: and to know this poor
remainder of a flower will win the war.

Refraction of the high bright noontime light
Of origin, white heat of every love
Yet known to man, dissolve my unity:
Grant visions of the treasure resting just
Beneath the surface of the visible:
Imprism me in crystal chains until
Veracity’s true color sets me free

The yellow locust
resting beside Walnut Creek
chides me for my haste

Beside Easter Lake
A blackbird flies overhead
Thinking of nothing