Listen

Standing in the garden,
left hand laden
with ripe strawberries. The sun

beams off the glassy
backs of flies. Three
birds in the birch tree.

They must have been there
all year.

My mother, my grandmother,
stood like this
in their gardens,

I am 43,
This year I have planted my feet
on this ground

and am practicing
growing up out of my legs
like a tree.
-Linda Lancione Moyer