Push

I don't care more

than you care,

I doubt my lungs

take more in,

I'm a feather in the middle

that completes a wing,

a blueberry

balancing on butter just so,

if there's a diamond

abandoned in your mother's drawer,

a key to an office

long closed,

then I'm the right age

for coffee on the porch,

I'll remember books

and gospels long overdue,

if you get a phone call

that returns

and returns to a swing in a tree,

I'll push, do a duck under

and run.

Four Strides

Peas tall as rain,

winged flowers strung to a pole,

careful to plant boots

between ankle deep beans,

I snap pods for salad.

The whole patch is four strides

by ten, just enough mud

to stain fingernails

and knees. Late lettuce

bolted since the storm I hoped

would drown the mole.

No flaming sword at the gate

but it is a bit of Eden,

for beginners.

Footnotes

Feet on the floor,

one day the cold wood

could shock the heart,

the daily miracle of knees

interrupted.

Aspirin, magnesium, exercise, even

scripture, all cautions;

an ant wrestling crumbs

across a mountain of cake,

the arterial paths of stars,

the pulse of the moon.

We make our way, 

grunting turtles in the sand.

If it were just magnets and light,

this thing of mornings from night,

we'd not bother with letters or names,

or footnotes to the intelligent

design.