The Grave Digger’s Garden
I buried a chicken today.
She breathed her last,
shivering in the cold
of the month before May.
The wind whipped
The grass and her feathers
Delivering a simulation
Of life. I knew the end
Just as I knew
the beginning
10 Decembers ago
When the first hen
Dropped an egg
And you sent me
The photo. The proudest
mother hen of all.
I drove my spade
into the soft ground
Between the boathouse
and the dry creek
Where lie the bodies
Of the odd chickens
and splendid skunks.
In the front I buried
The sweetest schnauzer
That ever rescued
A 12 year old boy grown
Into a middle age man.
I caught your Mom
In my arms in the doorway
As she began her slump.
For a moment she said
She couldn’t see though
Her sight returned.
The paramedics spirited
Her away to the hospital
Where nurses filled up
Her empty reservoirs
With a garden hose
The next day she bloomed.
I buried a chicken today.
She breathed her last,
shivering in the cold
of the month before May.
The wind whipped
The grass and her feathers
Delivering a simulation
Of life. I knew the end
Just as I knew
the beginning
10 Decembers ago
When the first hen
Dropped an egg
And you sent me
The photo. The proudest
mother hen of all.
I drove my spade
into the soft ground
Between the boathouse
and the dry creek
Where lie the bodies
Of the odd chickens
and splendid skunks.
In the front I buried
The sweetest schnauzer
That ever rescued
A 12 year old boy grown
Into a middle age man.
I caught your Mom
In my arms in the doorway
As she began her slump.
For a moment she said
She couldn’t see though
Her sight returned.
The paramedics spirited
Her away to the hospital
Where nurses filled up
Her empty reservoirs
With a garden hose
The next day she bloomed.