Dustbath

...
A soft dove colored dove pair settle into the breezy spot of sifted dirt on the lawn, bare of green. They preen and stretch out a leg and a wing, nudging the other, wife or husband forever, warm in the sunny summer heat, content as monkeys' midday snoozing in wild, faraway tree limbs.

Sunflowers sink with a thud into gopher holes, stump chewed neatly, sharply. Tasty underground parts are up for grabs if you're down there, watching an edible candelabra dancing above in the ceiling. We know they'll come, sniffing and scuttling dirt aside with little hands curled and digging, heaving neat, pebbly soil behind. Holes so deep they're bottomless. Listen as chunky sharp gravel rattles down the perfect circular sides.

I think of the traps near the poisonous stinking poison for sale at the too bright hardware chain warehouse store. And poison itself, ready to end the ruination of my garden. I think of the traps so it will be gently organic, but how can gentle describe decapitation and then stuffing the bloody thing down a hole to warn the others. I drowned one once, horrible, but practical. Brutal big cats and bears kill for dinner. I kill for vegetables.

Wire nailed on a frame, tipped over and filled with freshly composted, steaming fluffy, dirt; brand named "feather light" for used chicken feathers proliferating in this town. For now I poke in peppers (sweet) and squashes (zucc), started from seeds from who knows where. In Fresno or Bakersfield in flat neat robotic rows under pure flat hot sun, drip lines standing by, computerized for perfection, for clean bright distribution. Wholesale to resale to me to dirt to hope for a flourish of green in my garden.

I could buy my veggies for less. Far less. Iron and minerals, trace though they be, and C and maybe niacin, from my own dirt feeds me while D comes from outdoors while tending little, green, cellulose-bearing vegetables. I strive to fill up my belly with five servings of something fruity, dark leafy, something my animal stomach doesn't always want, except maybe at dinner; steamed to go down easy.

Watering is my favorite, but weeding makes demands as does trimming and watching for bugs (sow and pincher) and snails; organically because we're going to eat the plants. Chase those jays who want peanuts, who will hop, hop, hop on springy legs for sunflower seeds, but may mistake a seedling for food. This expensive vegetable garden joins us to our Eden. That magnificent solar system flies by ignoring Adam's work. Tender sunny hands reach like blind moles forced out of mounds, my turn to reach, to pat that hot, dark, shreddy mulch. Then sprinkling; keeping the blowing dust down and elements in.


...