Spring Planting

A Poem

A rain of sleeping marvels scatters down,
Small earthly bodies dormant, rough, and brown:
The garden seeds that fall from my slow hand
Into the waiting question of the land.
A simple gift, a blessing offered free
That in this ageless wonder I should be
A working part: Bare feet and rich dark earth
And sun and seed and slow deliberate worth
Of wholesome work unhurried. Favored soul!
In planting steeped anew in flawless whole:
The miracle that is the living green
Of fruitful harvest furled and still unseen
Within the earth's rough seed: The coming bright
High promise of eternity's pure light
Close-veiled and waiting in the earth's frail dust:
It's death and resurrection, hope and trust
That life will rise out of this silent sleep
Like seeds somehow drawn upward from the deep:
Drawn sunward by the call that rings on high,
Unsullied, toward the heaven-reach of sky.