Baby Lettuce

A poem for the new moon in Aries

What can we harvest in early spring

so quickly after planting?

tender lettuce and baby kale

stand ready to be plucked

there are many varieties of tomato

that grow well here, yet

we will never reap if we just

gaze at seed packets and

tend plots in our imagination

once things were more clear

we relied upon expectant rows

to generate a bumper crop each year

that cycle is complete.

What worked back then

will not work in this climate

we are left with untilled soil

waiting for fork tines of the future

to break through.

It’s tempting to let it all go and toss

out handfuls of wildflower seed,

but then the wild nasturtiums

remind you how expansive

wild can be

there will be ways to reap

what we have sown,

the necessary work is hidden

underground there is no glory, yet

it is here the foundation lies

dreamtime disappears

like a bright koi underwater

the need for action cuts

like a scythe through the last stalks

of last winter’s wheat

and underneath we see the soil again

dormant under dying crops

fortified by months of decay

the world shouts celebration

as spring’s buds bloom

but this is just one season

we can’t plant everything at once

there is a time for each idea

to have a moment in the sun

be tended to and watered with affection

the moon waxes and we plant intention

these are seeds of unknown origin

growing with roots tapped into intuition.