Within Limits

One afternoon in early spring
I collected debris from the
backyard, the deposit from
winter’s glacier. The hedge
offered me an armful of stale
newspapers, faded as the
news they carried, a broken
box, three mittens, a basket of
twigs shed by the weeping
willow, a broken-backed kite
and a gnawed bone. I heap them up,
these discards of a season and
the yard can now boast of its
clean features. My kind of order
craves a match to burn this pile
of trash, but time’s order, with a
patience older than grass, waits
on the burning hunger of decay.
And you, my dear, watch me with
fire and rake and keep within
limits my forward look.