In the dirt of the garden; I wait, watching and working while the children play

for here no money can be spent on entertainment or child care

instead kids sit outside, where the lighting is better and the breeze can bring relief

and carry the laughter of parcheesi play or ringing jenga shouts

 

The older boys play hockey in the street, halting for the few cars on their way to the city

cars fueled by dreams of success, far from our impoverished way

but once they pass it’s play once more, hardships and troubles be damned.

for asphalt is an unforgiving turf, and many a cut or scraped up knee

could have been avoided if not for poverty

 

But the mothers here are quick to care, for all of our collective children

a framework of mothers all trying to raise a generation

out of the poverty they have known

they work, trying to supplement their husbands 12 hour shifts

the watch, to help their children grow

 

So here I stand, watching them play, all the while pleading with the dirt

but the ambivalent earth refuses to give

unknowing of our need for subsistence, uncaring whether we live or die

today it sits angry, growing only rocks and dirt

I pick one up, admiring it, so worn so plain, plucked from amid the dirt

A gift for the little one, who waits by the fence dreaming up faces in the clay

She smiles, as if it were a jem, or she knows something I don’t

or maybe she is just glad to have something at all

and oh what a something.

 

Of all the jobs, of all the joys,

There is only one that surpasses all,

that of a mother, trying to raise children,

in this backlot garden of the world.