The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
—Iyanla Vanzant
It’s violent, pulling the spinach
up by the roots. Rationalize
it has bolted. Rationalize
some plants will never thrive.
Rationalize that all things
have a cycle.
Despite the rational mind,
there is the actual ripping out
of the roots, the plucking
of the leaves, the tossing
of the stems.
But it’s just a vegetable,
you tell yourself.
It’s not a metaphor.
It gets harder to believe that.
At some point, Perhaps you see
there is nothing in the world,
not one thing, in which
you can’t find a shard of yourself.
Everything, everything is charged with meaning.
But clearing out the spinach
is a job that must be done.
So you learn to invest kindness
into your touch.
You sing as you do it,
and you say simple words:
Thank you, thank you.
You will make a lovely
bright green soup tonight.
In some rows, you transplant flowers
in the space left behind.
In some rows, you do nothing
and notice how beautiful it can be, absence.
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