It stains my forefinger and fills my nails,
slices my palm with burred weeds,
and blisters my love line with tools
required to bring it to submission.
For the dried skin and sore back
I get stock so heavy that watering
forces aromatic heads downward.
I get nasturtiums creeping
across the stump of the Ponderosa Pine.
I get snapdragons throwing themselves
up along the wall of peeling paint.
Morning glories long to climb
the trellis that's not yet hung.
Tomato vines reach out
to the sun from the shade beneath the stairs.
Marigolds battle snails
who munch on young spinach.
Pansies turn their faces to the sky
so that they can grow up to be bushes.
And I get more wild, thick-stalked anise propagating,
propagating faster than I can pull it from the earth.
© Trina Baker, 1996