HANDS IN THE EARTH

my grandmother always wishes
that I would root my hands in the dirt.
nasturtiums and roses in her garden
behind that door where the cold blows in
between the wall and the high fence.

talk of the earth was in my head
mingled already with my blood
because aren't we all made that way?

but the pure joy in the doing
the coming back to the being
and the light that passed upwards
from the earth to my hand
connecting me to her
was not like the talk in my head.

I wove tendrils around small sticks
and made ponds out of nettle water
and watched, wide-eyed, as Mariken
revealed to me
    the secrets
         of creation.

and if you had seen me
pulling weeds by the chicken wire
you might have thought (with good presumption)
that I hated those plants
some of which stung my arm.
but I didn't hate them.

in fact, I loved them all
and carrying them by the armful
I hugged them close
 

the plants could be my medicine
those stings of the nettle are treated
with
small white flowers of the opposite kind
to the one that stung me in the beginning.

each part of nature is highly intertwined
but I am not separated from the whole
finally, I am digging my hands
back into the earth.