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.