This is land my mother had given up on:
the holes in the chicken wire fence too big 
to keep out the young rabbits;
the air fertile with weed seed 
and the soil always parched.

The rabbits visit daily.
They love all that is tender: 
the young radish shoots,
the broccoli flowerets, 
the budding okra leaves, 
and the incipient bean pods.
Hours after we weed, 
they return to nibble the exposed radish greens
as if we'd just set their plate.
My mother aimed a BB pistol,
but they just looked at her.

Weed seeds are the fifth column of an army.
They invade the garden every spring
and establish an interlocking system.
Wild clover send runners through the soil.
Grasses mass in cohorts.  Dandelions dig deep.
Thistles attack bare soil with tiny seeds
carried on the wind by gossamer paratroopers, .
This is a war, my mother says, she can never win.

As we are weekend warriors, 
the soil is always parched.
Only weeds survive our absence.
When we water, we water weeds.

I lavished days on the garden.
On my knees, hoe in hand,
I wrestled two 3' x 8' plots of land from the weeds
clearing bluestones large enough for walls,
roots to half fill a compost barrel, ancient string,
and broken bamboo markers. 
On these plots, in spite of all,
my wife grew zucchinis, my son Mexican corn,
my father tomatoes, one daughter Egyptian onions,
the other blue-green algeratum.
I grow Brandywines, spinach, and Chinese white radish.
But if you had hovered in the air, 
to watch me work these plots,
would you have noted 
how like a grave their dimensions were?


						Brandywine
						8/20/97