Did I think the farm would survive forever, as I have? I thought
the earth in the old garden where I beat those weeds
With a thin stick and that hole in the ground, it would take
me to another land.

I stood in the spring rains, remembering the seedtime
in another early summer, and remembered the deserted land
that was dug-up roots that kept on giving even after their bones
died, and their tokens of red and green were broken
into tangles of foliage.

Did I think that a barn where white petals grew up the sides,
lacing themselves in the knots, would be given
a sad, indignant, and rotting end. Like the rest
of its shelters, on the land of many other springs.

My age sees the beginning, and it will end on the farm if only
In my belief, there will always be the farm where I was born.
and in that passing, in all this time
I was thinking something different.

I hold on to these other ideas, their values
their innocence and beliefs that bones give even
if the land has failed.

I stand in the spring rains, remembering seedtime, and view green
as it erupts from the mounds of manured dirt,
see the sprouts lift tiny leaves, giving homage to their rains
the drops turn green, a color they remember
and the hole, is bone.