I came in
from the garden,
my hands dirty,
my nails, soiled,
and I wept.
For I’d been lost,
in the brambles,
in the sweet
now of doing,
and had forgotten
for a moment,
that the world
was breaking,
and the people
were dying.
Then the memory came,
like a wave
crashing over me,
and I couldn’t
breathe
for thinking,
of the world
that is breaking,
and the people
that are dying.
But I returned
to the garden,
to the sweet
now of doing,
and I breathed the air,
and I smelled the earth
and I lost myself
in the brambles.