The Way It Is

Prepare the ground, I told her,
channel a straight row, select
the seeds, drop them in the
open furrow, and cover them.
Observe these facts, I said, to keep
a garden from being helter skelter.
A radish seed won’t become a turnip
because it’s in a turnip row.
Seeds carry instructions,
even know the season, look how corn
sweats and heats at planting time.
(Lectures in her ears, a mosquito buzz in bed.)

Why tug nature’s skirts, she asked?
Let things grow their own way,
all this digging and raking and
pulling a string tight just to make
a straight row—does a radish care?
Why not crooked rows, room for more
seeds? Look at you pulling weeds,
don’t weeds have rights, aren’t they
alive with a will to grow?

I chopped angrily, hoed out
a young cabbage plant, left
a thistle standing

    Original Citation

    Great Lakes Review 4 (Summer 1977) 64.

    Word Count
    142
    Original Publication
    Date Published
    1977
    Book Appearance
    Complete Poems
    341
    Re-publication
    The Iowan (Spring 1979) 18.
    Theme(s)
    First Line
    Prepare the ground, I told her,
    Poetic Form
    open
    Twitter Quote
    don’t weeds have rights, aren’t they / alive with a will to grow?