The Barren Yard
By Ken Siegelman

There were no gardens in my father’s heart;
Everything was seen as weeds
Wilding in the way unkempt graves
Disturbed him in the Spring
And angered him by summer…
Mother feared bees and other flying things
And so we raked the soil
Which looked like tiger claws across the yard.
It puddled in the rain
And hardened into rock on sunny days…
And when he walked outside
To smoke his morning cigarette,
He leered across the yard
To catch a sprout
And bent to pull it out;
Calling me to get the rake
In a preemptive strike
Against nature closing in.