Spring Sewing

Always, in April,

there are rips

in my lawn

where winter has torn it.

So I stitch them up

by sowing grasses - rye,

aristocratic blue,

and red fescue,

but no creeping panic

or side-oats.

All of these

but the blue

once grew

wild

on the Illinois prairie,

an Eden without trees,

bright with flowers

named

not by Adam but by Indians

and munched by buffalo,

their snouts dusted with pollen,

their ears ringing

with the music

of bees.

My earth is hardpan,

not prairie loam,

but the seeds don't know this

as I fling them

by the fistful

into a

contrary breeze

to make them spread.

They shine in the sun

as

they

fall

and come to

rest

in the waiting clay,

each grain

an eventual needle.