When I read the jury has returned a verdict, I get out of the house, grab the trowel and walk a straight line to the southeast garden that gives up to Spring first.
I haven’t touched it this April. Withered stalks have trapped layers of leaves and cheatgrass and carpetweed are obeying their pathology, their roots already deep, their filaments seeking out fresh space in broad circles.
It feels good to wrench them out, beat the good soil away and flip them onto the compost pile.
I want it to be over — the excited red faces on the screens, the boot in the face, the knee on the neck.
The big maple’s final long limb died this winter. I like to watch the finches and doves gather, now made so open to the eye.
The sun is on my back. Red wings are giving off that twist of a buzz, unhappy at me kneeling too close to feed and water.
I have been stalling until the news grows cold, the wounds torn open or poulticed and a little less red at the edges.
I’m sick of our cruelty, weary all the way in, and not even this sun-kind hour lets me forget how ancient hatreds always return from exile.
