Fire in Bloom

Roots growing like thick mats, trapping
clay and dirt in their webs. We heard fire
lilies grow like flames in a drought,
but we covet orange
blossoms, sharp edges of green.

When we ripped up earth with stolen shovels,
making a vacancy for the transplants,
a fire bloomed in your hometown.

Days, you checked weather reports,
fire maps, worrying yourself to nausea. Nights, 
you made soap of cloves, juniper berries, mimicry
of the sharp edges of grief.

This summer, the fire lilies bloomed, and last year’s soap washed 
down the sink. Again, the fire maps light up,
deep red hues breed and die in buckshot patterns across California.

You water the lilies, keep cloves and juniper berries close,
watch the hills above Santa Cruz for blossoms.

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An Ecology for Tender-Hearted Boys

I have been known
to stop the mower, its swinging
blades to usher a gently sleeping
moth from its path, and
I have spent my time 
in left field, picking dandelion
heads from stems, drawing suns and stars
in yellow on my arm, and
I still stop digging, let out
a little mourning, when my shovel
blade slices a worm in two.

So I won’t apologize, if I sigh too loud,
holding my November baby, eyes still 
breaking in to the spring sun,
when I am told that there is something in a boy
which makes him into the terrible thing
somebody would make him.

I imagine a million tender hearts
into existence, give each bouquets
of lavender, and yes, this kind
you may eat, and yes, that puddle
can be jumped in, and yes, that is a dove,
cooing, and yes, they all live
just down the road, and yes, that is an apple tree,
and yes, you may climb it, and yes,
you should be careful, and yes,
the voles have made their home
in the wild lawn, and yes, I too am sad
for the day I will have to evict them, and yes,
I too am happy for the elderberry, and the cedar,
and the fir too, and yes, you may pluck all my dandelions,
blow them like you want, and yes, you may make a little grave
for the worms and the roadkill from the highway,
and yes, we can pretend they all sleep tenderly,
just beneath our feet.