This part of the garden
makes you want to write a poem,
you say, and you're right,
it does.

Something to remember the
wild carrots and salvia, the garlic,
mint, catnip, nasturtiums,
the bright pink and deep purple
we don't know the names for,
all the little things others would weed
that you've let go to seed.

I've written enough, though,
to know the garden is already a poem
and needs nothing from me
to go on being exactly as it is,
so I sit with the baby and the dog
and pay attention,
before cleaning the apple
they're playing with in rain water
and going home softly,
because the whole practice
is just about being here.

Just stay here.

Life has this shape, now,
which knows how to stop
without any extra instruction,
and my joy in this fact
knows no bounds.