Digging out stubborn chives,
moving cement blocks to make walls,
piling in dirt for a tomato bed.
Stretching chicken wire around short posts,
fencing rabbits out of my soon-to-be lettuce patch.
Planting nasturtium seeds in plastic strawberry boxes,
watering lilies that came up and lettuce that didn’t
(not yet, maybe tomorrow).
Unwrapping winter fences around
lilac, bridal wreath, mock orange,
nine bark shrub, hydrangea.
Clearing last year’s leaves and litter,
revealing bloodroot, wild ginger, sedum,
spring.
Fragments is written by Mary Turck, who lives and writes in St. Paul, Minnesota.