for Joyce Sutphen
Tug a carrot out of the earth, an orange
tooth, and brush it right there in the garden.
Wash it in the rain barrel, the water
tinted gold like Listerine. Now it’s clean,
a root with delicate roots of its own,
and greens like wild Irish hair gathered up
in your fingers, limp in the August heat.
Good work adds up: it’s physically-logical.
We are happiest in context, our feet
bare again in the summer garden, where
seeds we tapped out in April have become
all we can talk about (except children).
We love the earth we came from, and the sky
we’re lofted into, and (first and last) words.