Walking on a thin crust of snow

I stop where my father’s garden was

in the yard of their house,

which I sold almost a decade ago, after they died.

The house is momentarily empty, between owners.

My parent’s great grandchildren wonder why we are here.

I bend down, a grandfather, and thrust my hands into the dirt.

The dirt I helped work when I was my granddaughter’s age

walking next to my father to till and plant.

How much of this dirt

clinging to potatoes, tomatoes, and squash

eaten over multiple dinners around crowded tables

is in my children’s, and my grandchildren’s bones?

How much of what we do now,

will carry forward?

We used to blame the establishment

for the world’s woes.

How much will they look back

and see not dirt, but blood

on our hands,

if all, in the end, we leave them with,

is overheated lifeless dirt?

© by Daniel DeMarle 12/5/2022