Tricia Knoll, 1/22/2018

Current occupation: Poet
Former occupation: Wanna-be Poet who made a living doing communications, public relations, and public information work for the City of Portland, Oregon 
Contact Information: Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet who maintains gardens for native plants, butterflies, pollinators, and people who want to smell a nice rose. She has three collections of poetry in print with a fourth, How I Learned to Be White coming out from Antrim House later in 2018. Website: triciaknoll.com 

#

Punching the Garden Time Clock

He asked what I did.

List:

Divide yellow and green saxifrage so summer catches more dapples under the Japanese maple, sweep scummy leaves from the birdbath with an alder branch, thrust rush and willow shoots into the scoured creek bank.

Squeeze out hairy bittercress threatening to splatter seeds, prune fig tree rambles, straighten mossy bricks of the salamander condo, and scrub algae off Buddha’s head. Poke in snap peas, stir worm squirms in the compost bin, and fertilize roses’ burning sprouts on last year’s green.

Truth:

Waltz with intimacy of dirt
dip finger in rainwater in the blue birdbath basin
click heels to hummingbird in red currant
drum with flicker’s tum tum tum of nest hole in the cedar
slip white river rock on Buddha’s lap
 
        Nails crammed with soil
        no hurry to wash
         crescent moon