Year on year, month on month
How does your garden grow?

Don’t tell me about the blessing of rain
After a morning’s weeding.
Leave out quiet hope, the little prayer
That tumbled out as you patted
Tenuous roots into well-turned soil.
Tell me how many flowers.

Then let us plan
New lands of productivity.
Take away hands from fruit
Stamp it with a twee name
Make sure it’s difficult to pronounce
And full of moral high ground.

Quinoa is done, we need
A new alpha.