Life/Nurture

This morning
all plans changed
in the hospital
holding nothing in my lap
while you hold your belly
The grandmother holding a baby in the seat behind me
she knows the slant of baby-backs without trying
gently rocking new life into being
how do we hold what is precious?
How do we let it go?
Later, in the garden I am soaking the plants with the hose
I wonder at its phallic spray
giving its fizzy white water to the thirsty dark earth
and the little plants that grow up
shooting happily towards the sky in all thier greeny newness
in the shimmering ten o clock springtime morning I sit
transfixed by life and death
watching the steam rise up off the planter boxes Sean built
out of leftovers
I think of him in that afternoon with the whirring saw
and the orange power cord running through the kitchen window from the yard
he seemed happy to be of use
This morning I watched your husband wrap a tiny
seedling
in newspaper
its little leaves shaking, quivering beneath his long brown fingers
carefully he wrapped the baby plant up and packed it into his satchel
for a moment I caught his eyes
watery brown pools of possibility
like the wet watered earth of our garden