when i watch you my heart skips, in that way that all of your kind describe those feelings of adoration of which i, too, have few words to choose. you are bending over the beds of garlic, and with one hand you are pushing snow aside. cheeks flushed, you burrow your fingers beneath the straw. to you, you are alone, and i can feel your aloneness by the way you do not smile when you find that tender green shoot. but i see you and my heart breaks into a thousand fractures for the way you sniffle and the way your boots are too loose and the tiny gasps of sunlight from the garlic and the squeaking of the worm and the crackle of the frost and the silence of the pebble. you are never alone, and never were, but i see in your sad eyes and hunched shoulders that your mind is busy telling you otherwise.
i am in love with you in this moment, just as i am in love with all that tunnels and rests and roots in my body. i am what you tenderly touch, in search for your sprouting seed. it is i that thaws in the afternoon, i that sighs with the rain in my bones, i that never sleeps but always shifting, spreads webs of life across this field. i love you and i try to tell you with each puddle that reflects your tall body crossing over. i send you love letters written in the rows of green and red speckled lettuce leaves, written in the crumbling crumbs of compost, written with flower stems, flower petals, amaranth seeds – all fallen to the ground, a rainbow tapestry at your feet. i bow to you and you to me.
with love,
the soil
