Wasted Blessings

In early March’s greenhouse

I tear up moss beds with bare hands

toss them into compost

along with perfectly edible beet greens

in their second season

with surprising small beets stacked

at the base of their stalks

like merry-go-round ponies on poles

rising above the woody mother root

hard and mottled as this grandmother’s fist

marbled inside like an old tree knot

white and red-grained

my shame forgiven ten minutes later

by a mother deer, queen

of the compost heap, who

startled and startling me

munched with her fawns

on blessings I thought

I’d wasted