JoAnn Early Macken

 

 

Beneath the Mulch

 

You might be shocked if you should poke

your nose beneath the mulch.

For there you'll face a vast array

of foes beneath the mulch.

The worst plants in the flower bed

don't doze beneath the mulch.

So grab your tools. Go dig and pull

what grows beneath the mulch.

 

I've been tangling with a patch of invasive creeping bellflower that has taken hold on our front hill. I didn't want to rake last year's leaves too early for fear of disturbing any sleeping insects that might still be overwintering into this chilly spring. When I finally started weeding, I found the creepy stuff had worked its way well across the hill underneath the leaves. Live and learn.

 

We escaped to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota for a much-needed break. We stayed in a cozy little cabin, cooked over a campfire, walked in woods filled with birdsong and spring wildflowers, and paddled across a quiet lake. Now I'm ready to garden and protest and maybe even write a bit again. The wild strawberry plants I mentioned in my last post are here. It's time to finish weeding and plant them. Wish me luck!

 

Buffy Silverman hosts today's Poetry Friday Roundup. Enjoy!

 

 

You know how you get up in the morning and check the weather forecast, and you see that rain is on its way again, so you figure you'd better get your walk in early, and maybe today is finally the day to scatter the last of the milkweed seeds that spent the winter in the garage after you stored all you thought you could possibly use in the refrigerator to plant when the weather warms up? So you head to the bike path and spread those seeds around the bare spots along one side, and it's already foggy and kind of damp, so they stick to the dirt instead of flying away, and you keep walking through the wet grass, even after your feet are soaked, scattering milkweed seeds and hoping they'll sprout and monarchs will come, along with all the other creatures that benefit from milkweed, until you reach the garlic mustard patch that goes on and on and on, and it gets harder and harder to find any bare spots?

 

But eventually you do, and all the seeds are spread, and by then you have to pee, so you walk into the clubhouse of the golf course in the public park that your tax dollars pay for, and you see that someone has knocked down two swallows' nests in the entranceway because heaven forbid some bird poops outside the clubhouse, and when you come back out, you notice that there is not one dandelion on the whole golf course, which you know means that the park has been poisoned with pesticides, and you wonder what will happen to the worms that those robins over there are hunting for, and wait a minute—are there any worms? And you wish the robins good luck and safe hunting, and you turn around to head home thinking, How on Earth are we going to fix this?

 

And then you realize that you just said "we." Because all over the world, millions of people like you are trying to do the right thing, trying to care for our planet in spite of what the greedy idiots in power say, doing whatever little bits and pieces they can to try to protect what they care about. Millions of people are planting milkweed and pulling out invasive weeds and picking up trash. Millions of people are remembering to bring (and even make) their own shopping bags and refusing plastic and recycling what can be recycled, and no, it's not enough, not yet, but you can't give up because it's still the right thing to do and at least—thank goodness—you are not alone.