Disengardening for Nature

Volunteer Revegetation Saturday

After all the stabbing at heavy soil in the rain,
and all the hands, backs, eyes, knees, working the plants in
and after passing pots, picks, spades, cups, bottles, chuckles, shovels,
and so many how-to’s and how-come’s and
all too simple explanations, ...

the last thing we did was back out,
driving blue flags into the ground as we went,
erasing our own route in.

If it is the path that makes the garden,
and the garden that civilizes the wild,
we are disengardening now,
turning on our past and our pioneering ways
to make amends for the scythe that went too far,
to say a thank you audaciously
for the future.

by Cindy Goulder (with minor revisions) from Restoration & Management Notes vol. 14, no. 1 (1996): p. 62.