with lines from Charles Foster Wallace and Karl Rahner
Flinging fistfuls of Scott’s Fall Turf Builder
with one gloved hand, holding the slick plastic bag
with the other, I walk through the yard
like the figure in the floppy hat in Van Gogh’s
The Sower striding down the thick blue
furrows, a great orange and yellow sun rising up
behind him. Though it’s misty and gray
and my yard is ringed with trees. The pellets
fly out in long lazy arcs. Irony tyrannizes.
Everything dies and everything rises
and this is how it really is. I do not lead a life.
I work and write and teach. I try to do my duty
and earn a living. I try this ordinary way
of serving God. Nitrogen and potassium and
all the other chemicals healing the dry,
desiccated roots. In spring the bright green grass.
Fluffy white clouds. The seed is the Word.