At the farmer’s market, we’re charmed
by the floppy hats, and welly boots,
the bouquets of flowers and baskets of fruit,

and although gardeners believe
in the need for blades
              and black seasons
in prunings
              and uprootings
in soil made rich by the rotting
of cabbages and kings,

they smile as they offer samples
of peaches, slices of tomatoes,
cuttings of lavender, the bounty
of this seductive green world,
that tongues forth from our graves.

From Exit, Pursued by a Bear (Press 53, 2016).
Used here with the author’s permission.