The yard and woods shared ferns,
but who owned the seven birches?
Deer that crossed the property line
became mine, before they strolled
up Harm’s Way. The sun
tells when to plant and where
if you care about your yield,
and in which field will the spring
lambs learn their colors and become
numbers? Last season’s mud
hardened on the shovel. I was raised
to hate that, to love order,
corn in mounds and mounds
in a row. I was taught to measure
the inches between fences.
But I learned to surrender.
Here are all my keys to the land:
this handful of seeds.