Deciduous
As with most things in life, when planting, say,
a trumpet creeper underneath the oak,
it’s best if you don’t second-guess yourself.
Perhaps you will, through lack of expertise,
at last choke out its life just as you fear.
May be your dearth of knowledge as regards
the “dripline” and the “critical radius”
leaves you surprised to find the bulk of roots
wound through the top three feet of soil. It will
not do you good this late to read that white
oak’s known to be “sensitive to severance.”
Those inelegant strokes of your shovel have
already stripped small dark veins down to pale
cream-white marrows. Pick up your spade and finish.
Get down on knees and gloves and reconcile
yourself to clay. Roughen the root ball, now,
fill in, and tamp down. The garden may yet survive,
profuse in orange-red blossoms, also acorns.
Acknowledgement: “Deciduous” was first published in Weber: The Contemporary West (Vol. 37.1).
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