the new yard, gravel and rock
bare ground muddied in recent rain
lies fertile on the mind
for dogwood, pink and white,
a pair of redbuds, either side of the drive,
a couple of brooding lilacs next to the house
out back, on the hill, where the water has run
into the basement already, the mind has placed two apples,
a peach, and a fish pond
all this gardening, digging, hoeing,
mulching around roots, smacking dust and soil
from knees of jeans and crimps of skin
presupposes the pinoak, now a sapling,
draping its green curtain over it all
shade an old man
might remember he wanted to see
as he sits on a porch swing under a broken gutter
before a house long in need of paint
in the shade of that tree
