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A woman was fighting a tree. The tree had come to rage at the woman’s attack, breaking free from its earth it waddled at her with its great root feet. Goddamn these sentiencies, roared the tree with birds shrieking in its branches. Look out, you’ll fall on me, you bastard, screamed the woman as she hit at the tree. The tree whisked and whisked with its leafy branches. The woman kicked and bit screaming, kill me kill me or I’ll kill you! Her husband seeing the commotion came running crying, what tree has lost patience? The ax the ax, damnfool, the ax, she screamed. Oh no, roared the tree dragging its long roots rhythmically limping like a sea lion towards her husband. But oughtn’t we to talk about this? cried her husband. But oughtn’t we to talk about this, mimicked his wife. But what is this all about? he cried. When you see me killing something you should reason that it will want to kill me back, she screamed. But before her husband could decide what next action to perform the tree had killed both the wife and her husband. Before the woman died she screamed, now do you see? He said, what...? And then he died.

Missionary girl reports that Chinese addicts say your heart begs you to stay away

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging. The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I’ve no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.

I.The Secret Garden fooled the squash bugs by setting young plants in the center of piles of old weathered cedar shingles that i had dumped one truckload at a time around the perimeter of the woods out of sight of the house yet near enough to garner a hand of bucketful for kindling when the woodstove became december’s focus the shingle pile had flattened from firewood attrition and gravity so only a few layers remained no wild plants grew up through the shingles although a couple of hours of sunshine lit each pile each day i called it the secret garden because no one ever walks that way II.The Change the middle vegetable garden and the south garden (Vegetable River) have provided entertainment and food first the june-july drought scorched and stunted growth even with frequent watering then came the late july and august monsoons with a 65-70/85-90 mix almost every day the plants invigorated the bugs rebirthed the grasses skyrocketed from rock-hard drought to rainforest jungle i took a gas-powered weedeater into the Vegetable River delta yesterday whacked some high weeds on the periphery of the melon patch and uncovered two twenty-pound crimson sweets in another corner of the patch a crimson sweet was so ripe that it had cracked itself open sixty-five days after sticking the seed in the ground i was thrilled after three years of growing vines and stunted fruit i had finally grown big ripe melons III.August august gardening is by caesar certainly august the purple hulls the yellow-shelled cowpeas yellow and white okra blossoms all wash out in the intensity of <<green>> whelming <<green>> even on a cool morning or evening i come in from the search and harvest having had not the slightest perception of heat even with sweat drenching my forehead double-shirted long-sleeved against the reborn mosquitoes and realize only then how hot my body is the air is cool what created the heat? a perception narrows that more than heat and humidity are at play an intensity a swollen vibration more than the half-black over-ripe jalapenos more than the crisp prongs of okra pod more than the nutty crunch of raw cowpeas more than the fruitful tangle of kentucky wonder and morning glory smartweed vines more than white glistening corn smut blisters more than the biggest brightest-marked three-inch grasshoppers and cicadas that you’ve ever seen an intensity underlain in a crush of <<green>> an interplay a swollen vibration a chlorophylandering that even the dogs won’t come near no snakes no skinks no lizards too strong for spiders

Crouched before dismantled guns, we found war souvenirs our uncle padlocked in the attic, a brittle latch easily pried off. Stiff uniforms on top, snapshots of soldiers young as our cousins, a velvet box of medals as if he fought all battles in World War II. Bayonets, machetes, a folded flag, two hand grenades with missing pins. We picked up teeth like pennies, loose, as if tossed in, a piece of something dark and waxy like a fig, curved like a question mark, a human ear. We touched dried pieces of cloth stuck to curved bones and held them to the light, turning them over and over, wondering how did uncles learn to kill, what would happen when we grew up.

How should I index myself so that you can retrieve & cut me from the 1970 catalogs of infant headshots & paste me beside you? This I wanted to know while the grandfather held up his 1940 photo of three men laughing beside a new Buick. He said, "If you could identify them, then my life would be changed forever." If anyone knows the names for paper as vulnerable as skin, then please tell me if I find my birth documents burned, ripped, or yellowed with information missing, or if I don't find them at all? I listened as the panelists advised the grandfather to search the database, my body like too much information unsorted: all errors, useless without a way to see it linked to get somewhere. My arms disappearing while the grandfather passed his laminated photo around the room.

Their authority did not unfold from ironed white shirts and thin ties or from the funereal seriousness that struck their acne-splashed faces but because they stood heir to our native faith in light. So we followed the thin white waver of beams they pointed down aisles to seats we never thought of refusing. It was the first job I wanted, especially after birthday outings far from home showed me the glowing outfits worn by big-city ushers, their get-ups a blend of doorman and military dictator, as gaudy and fine as the plots of movies my Saturdays were swallowed by. None of us knew, as they took us into the artificial light of the cinema, that they walked the path of the pin setter, the blacksmith or elevator operator, professions reduced to curiosity by wandering time. Only in the quick steps of floor salesmen, the slim backs of hostesses bringing us to our tables, do they remain, the artful flutters of their flashlights lost in dark we are left to find our own way through.

“Dark and amusing he is, this handsome gallant, Of chamois-polished charm, Athlete and dancer of uncommon talent— Is there cause for alarm In his smooth demeanor, the proud tilt of his chin, This cavaliere servente, this Harlequin? “Gentle and kindly this other, ardent but shy, With an intelligence Who would not glory to be guided by— And would it not make sense To trust in someone so devoted, so Worshipful as this tender, pale Pierrot? “Since both of them delight, if I must choose I win a matchless mate, But by that very winning choice I lose— I pause, I hesitate, Putting decision off,” says Columbine, “And while I hesitate, they both are mine.”

Whatever we do, whether we light strangers’ cigarettes—it may turn out to be a detective wanting to know who is free with a light on a lonely street nights— or whether we turn away and get a knife planted between our shoulders for our discourtesy; whatever we do—whether we marry for love and wake up to find love is a task, or whether for convenience to find love must be won over, or we are desperate— whatever we do; save by dying, and there too we are caught, by being planted too close to our parents.

All afternoon I walk behind the mower, Imagining, though paradoxically, That even though the grass is getting lower, What I have cut is like a rising sea; The parts I haven’t cut, with every pass, Resemble real geography, a map, A shrinking island continent of grass Where shoreline vanishes with every lap. At last, the noise and smell of gasoline Dispel my dream. What sea? Peninsulas? They were the lands my inner child had seen, Their little Yucatáns and Floridas. But when I’m finished, and Yard goes back to Lawn, I can’t help thinking that a world is gone.