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| mary marie dixon |  | 1. Planting Tubers I’ll never slice tubers, prematurely, in mole salamander’s cellar, Even if winter makes her last confession at the narthex of spring. Even if the sky’s cupola glisters cobalt and cirrus clouds forecast clemency, I’ll never again furrow the frozen ground in the ides of March. Never will I enter the undercroft when the chancel is barely lit, Nor nestle the sapping white in perfect intervals. I’ll never again cover the eyes of seed potatoes in the limbo of a new moon Even if it is Good Friday. Even if the rains come, penitential floods to blacken silty loam, I’ll not be tempted into that hasty paradise. Never will I mark the Farmer’s Almanac and prophesy over sprouting bulbs, Even if the sun’s honey, on the high altar, tempts the blossom of the crabapple. I won’t forget the stinging frost, fresh from winter’s ambry, crimping spindly vines In their graceful advent. Even if the flux toward solstice taints the slushing snow, I’ll know the reaping depends upon the judgment of prudence | |
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