I pass the big nursery
on the way to see my father
for the first time in a year,
trees upright, supported
by cables, thriving in mid-morning
hose rainbows, fertilizer measured
and distributed. I imagine
working the harvest,
a bone-tired feeling like penance
the smell of it under fingernails
and clutching heavy to long sleeve
shirts. Better this than the continued
forgive me help me to forgive.
I am afraid there is no one
to absolve my sins:
without shame
there is no relief in mercy
without mercy only forgetting, chronic
preoccupancy. The lines of pear trees dizzy
as I pass—the smell the gasoline strong.
If given more time I would take my shoes off,
and feel the slight itch of summer grass, sweep
up all the dew I can before the sun’s too hot,
I would let my feet be washed.
Listen to a conversation about this poem on the Reformed Journal Podcast.
