Loving Into

I have loved into the mess of things—

through the carefully plotted luck

of a new greenhouse—everything green

in a few weeks! Lush at once!

It must be my green thumb, you think,

until next spring’s pill bugs.

I have loved into seasons that do not align.

Nothing thrives in sync, on time.

One side, often west, green through winter,

now overgrown with too many seed heads,

carrots lustily dusting you each time you pass,

spider mites taking up residence in umbels,

beet stalks gone to star-studded seed.

I have loved into the other sides as well—

the south, the east, trying to do it all,

tend and protect all the tender greens

that disappear overnight to slugs

or wilt in summer’s early heat.

Prune tomatoes raring to raggedly leap

indeterminately above their cages

seeking some string to climb out of reach.

I have loved into nothing becoming something

beautiful at the same rate, but all booming

at some stage of growth or decay—

nothing universally, Instagramably photographable.

The only observable signal: I lost control,

or really, this is how real greenhouses age

into the wildness of benign neglect

an exhaustion so pure, one can only trust,

much like my body, my mothering, my love.