in the garden

I found these words scribbled on the front of a magazine from 1999.
I was a new mother. Full of fear. In the garden. With the rain.

Poetry Notes, 1999

Sunday evening
When the sky was still filled with light,
And the rain had softened to a mist,
I went out to the garden to weed.

At first tentative,
With spade and trowel,
Bending and squatting:
There was the garden–And
there was Me.

But through the hours
Of sweat and fatigue, and the fear
Of leaving children motherless,
I entered the Garden.

I knelt in the soil,
Cupped dirt with my hands,
Shaped mounds
Around each
New plant.

The puddles, christened
Me, with mud, until
I surrendered
My separation.

Dirty
I became the Dirt
And the dirt became Me
And in this Homecoming,
the fear of death drained from my bones.

I was the joy of the Universe
Expanding, Alive