Call before you dig.

Assure that Earth there too is willing

where your spade you wish to plunge.

If in talking you discover

that treasure can truly grow

in the spot your eyes have marked,

cross it also with your heart.

Then make the hole a passing wound

within a wider health.

Although it’s future-work,

be present to its going,

for all kinds of disappointments

can assail a seedling’s years

but little can deceive a well planted  now.

Soon shade,

that sudden, springtime invention

of leaf and light,

will thicken your longer views

and wide clearings will contract

to smaller rounds of greater clarity.