You saw waves of wheatfields here.
You heard of hunger on Asian islands; of African highlands
where black hands to white teeth come empty.
You learned that bellies swell from marasmus
but are slim when full;
that those young limbs not crushed by kwashiorkor
may live on to shred from factioned bullets.
So you studied seed, nurture, harvest, trade and pricing.
You lived your winters
high among buildings budding in green-lit night,
your summers under orchard boughs.
You enumerated yields.
At home one spring you planted beans and carrots
behind your kitchen.
But with green just poking from the earth
you left for another country;
their weeds of foreign despair would need some pulling.
I came to weed your garden every week:
the tiny stalks between my fingers
resisted almost
like the memories I almost regretted having touched.
Not knowing of my visits,
your grandfather puzzled at the weedless rows.
Then he understood how right it was
to give to the larger gardens of the world
an offspring so pure of inspiration,
so clean in cultivation that behind your steps
the soil restrains the growth of weeds.
Beyond that, his only wish:
that you find a love as weedless as your garden.
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