Editor’s note: This poem is part of the Work and Hope series.

Beyond the guarded gate of Eden,
Between the greened rows in my garden,
Where day by day I work, watch, and tend
As Heaven’s law did ever intend,
Composting, mulching, cultivating,
Planning, planting, watering, waiting,
Welcoming the worm, snake, wasp, and bee
As my friendly garden company,
In the same soil with fertility
Nature sows seeds of futility—
Briar, thistle, nettle, sprout, prick, pain,
Quackgrass, bindweed, ivy, creep, choke, rein,
Looper and hopper, fresh leaf devour,
Beetle, bug, and slug, ripe flesh do sour,
Yielding toiling, sweating, frustration
Beside tilling, resting, fruition:
Remainder of the old ground-borne curse,
Reminder that Earth was good, blessed, first.