Zen Weeding

At last I attacked

a rude section of weeds

in the veg garden. I dug,

pulled, yanked, ripped,

shook, and tossed plants

with white ganglia roots.

I sweat, took off my jacket, 

got chilled, put it back on.

A rain squall came. I told

myself to stay in the weeding

moment. Zen weeder. I couldn't.

My mind hopped around

like water drops on a hot

griddle. But trying to stay

in the moment kept me

weeding, at least. Half-

zenned, half the weeds gone,

drenched, I scurried inside. 

hans ostrom 2024

Squashes in the Farmers' Market

Market squashes (do the Brits

call them "marrow"?) conjure a carnival
of painted shapes self-sculpted
by the genius of seeds. Like books,
the squashes have pulp inside,
enclosed by hard or soft covers.

Some species hold a hollow
zone where sound can play.
Dried gourds become instruments,
and a thumped pumpkin will mumble
autumn syllables. A crook-necked
squash can become the baton
that conducts Zucchini's unfinished
symphony. Still, Fall does mean

the party's over. We select our squash,
haul it home to grill or bake--or cut up
raw. Next Summer's vines are already
blue-printed in seeds as the soil rolls
over, exhausted, in need of dreams.

hans ostrom 2023

Of Roses, Again

Just as castles want

nothing to do
with other buildings--
roses don't desire
the company of other flowers.

They wield thorny branches
like maces, defending
their center. Buds
and opened roses
emerge like wise,
gorgeous princesses.

And the colors. My
God--as vivid
and stirring as flags,
as various as whims.
A gardener cultivates
flowers. A gardener
negotiates with roses,
which define their property,
own it, become green
monuments with spikes.

hans ostrom 2023

I Spy the Local Eagle

I'm hauling a bin of prunings

and clippings when a bald eagle
flies by low. With one quick
side-glance, it unnerves me.

Such a sure bird, dark and big-
shouldered, yellow-clawed
like a dragon, its wide wings
like a glider's. Those white

head-feathers surround cold
binocular eyes, microscopic
if need be, as when the eagle
parks above water, wings wide,
not moving, not straining, absolute
mastery of air-currents. And
the bird with the wrecking
beak looks down. Sees
the necessary fish. Dives.

Bound to land, I pull
the bin like a large draught horse,
heavy-footed, and a breeze
teases my cap.

hans ostrom 2023

seagull in time

seagull high

up on a pole

sees dawn come 

early enough 

today to face

fully, light

dyeing white

feathers pink.

to me, it's still

astounding how

this whirling

sphere (which we

don't own) 

sidles so slowly

up to its local

fireball this

time of year,

this time of 

time. I itch

to dig in muddy

soil, the tip

of my old

shovel worn

into a concave

crescent line. 

From a Diary of the Plague Year (13)

Sometimes I'm inside
hiding from the virus.
Sometimes I'm outside
hiding from the virus,
digging in the dirt around
fledgling vegetables
and forming flowers.

Inside or outside,
I also try to hide from
celebrities. Their faces,
peccadilloes, opinions,
and posts swarm. They're
not the norm but the fame
machine tries to make us
famished, hungry for
manufactured news

of celebs. It makes me
febrile, celebraphobic,
vised in by the virus
and the famous. I don't
know who most of them
are but must react as if I do.

Inside, old time reading
helps, hefting a book of words.
Outside, the worms and crows
and trees and fleas are not
famous and I am treated
as just another beast.


hans ostrom 2020

From a Diary of the Plague Year (3)

Planting yarrow on a hillside--
glimpsed a lone eagle just overhead.
It locked its wings to an updraft,
parked, scanned. I saw its
head tilt toward me. And the eyes.

I won't say I felt hunted. I will
say I stood up and tried to convey
maximum respect. The bright
white of the bird's head flashed
like snow on the Olympic Range,
also visible today--its sharp
peaks bunched together like a
stone chorus. The eagle

coasted in circles--stiff wind
not more than an obedient
servant. Rotating its body
and wings, it was off to complete
rounds, diagnosing the ground.

Predatory, pristine, supreme,
remote, austere: eagle,
above our clotted fretting
down here.


hans ostrom 2020

Regarding Planted Trees

The trees I've planted in several
locales on this West Coast
have their own lives. They
must manage sap, paint leaves,
then cast them off, then more
leaves, blossoms, plums, apples . . .
Birds and insects consider
these trees to be airports

and resorts for summer avian
tourists. From a window
I can see the sensualist fig
tree spread its branches
voluptuously. It produces
shamelessly extravagant leaves.
Months from now it will let
figs swell, harden, soften
lasciviously. Thank God 
I planted that tree, I murmur
sometimes to myself, quietly.


hans ostrom 2020

Ultimate Shade

A gardener grabbed
dead day-lily stalks
and some soil with them.
And an earthworm. Earthworm.
Syllables of that word
burrow deep in the mouth. Said

gardener let the worm lie
in a gloved palm. Said
earthworm paused its wriggling
until the gloved hand had
repatriated it to a bed of soil
where vegetables meet
to gossip about each other.

Buried alive in soft dirt,
the worm resurrected its writhing
life in ultimate shade, as gardener
returned to a life in air and light
and work and worry.


hans ostrom 2019

October Figs

Finally they've changed
from hard green knobs to small
soft purple pouches, veined.
Inside they're vegetative
geodes. As filtered through
O'Keefe and Lawrence, they
may amuse you with vaginal
likeness. That's fun, but anyway:
harvest. Their deep brown stems
are so soft now, the figs
fall into your palm almost
before the pick. The taste
is outside sweet or savory.
It's creamy, calmly robust.
If you must, think of lust.


hans ostrom 2018

Cold April

unfriendly sky
new garden leaves shiver
the crows flap hard against the wind


hans ostrom 2018

A Quality of Cold in September

Cold no longer subtle,
as the shifts started in September
as we finished framing a house.
Hurry, get the roof on.

Cold now in September
as I clear the garden beds,
knocking loose a few last
golden potatoes and carrots
with sunburned indigo shoulders.

It's an insistent chill.  An overture
to a Winter suite. An advance-team
working for an immanent season
that bides its clime in gravitational
patterns.  A shirt under

a flannel work-shirt--then and now--
soaks up sweat & cold startles
the skin when wind rouses itself.
This is a ritual annoyance
that flavors wistful weariness
when I pick up a rake or a shovel.


hans ostrom 2017

Sunflowers Are Sad, Experts Claim

Propaganda notwithstanding, sunflowers
are morose. Their puritanical, resolute
stalks lift them up to be sacrificed
to the gods, which employ birds, flies,
and bees as visiting priests. The central

cycloptic seed-cushion--color of tobacco
juice--weighs too much, like depression.
Too, please note the celebrated solar petals

wrinkle like Edwardian handkerchiefs
left in a jungle. Oh, Sunflower, foster
child of Old Bill Blake, 1960s advertising,
and baseball players: I bow my head
to you and yours.  You grow, I garden,
and it's all work, isn't it?


hans ostrom 2017

Always One More

There's always one more, you know. One
more problem, pain, opportunity, pleasure.
Another nail, bolt, squirt of toothpaste, surprise.
And another acceptance required.

One more blackberry or tomato to pick,
one more spud in the dirt. Another task,
chore, duty. Oh, yes, one more good
idea, atavistic evil notion, phase

of healthy cultural growth. Another
star, pickle, song. One more
word, glance of understanding, heart break.
Until there isn't. But then there is.


hans ostrom 2016

Faith Is Bulbs

Faith? Don't speak to me of Allah, Yahweh,
Jahova, Christ, Moses, da Buddha-man, Zeus,
Sky Papa, Earth Mama--or any of it.

I'm no atheist. I'm a modest gardener,
vegetables and flowers, who in Spring
is online-ordering tulip bulbs to plant

in October and to witness the following
Spring. That is faith.


hans ostrom 2016

Under the Horizon

Thinking today of how like all workers
the Old Man got body-tired of and bored
with labor about the same time, like me
today chopping at a vegetable garden's
frozen mud in January.  Your mind

lets your body make your mind
think, "This shit is getting old."
You feel like you think the sun
looks when it seems to drop
below the top of shadowed hills:
ready for bed. Of course there's more
work waiting under the horizon.


hans ostrom 2016

"Plenty of Enough"

He preferred disenchanted gardens,
their real dishabile.
Accepted how, without wizardry,
one seed became a huge plant
with edible stuff hanging from it:
that was plenty of enough.

If a unicorn or a nymph
should wander in
among the productive mess,
he'd offer the nymph
a sugar-pea pod
and wait for the unicorn
to generate manure.
Fertilizer, of course.

He liked to listen to bumble-bees
and watch the writhing dance of worms.


hans ostrom 2015

"They Are Up"

Strong and bold,
confident and true,
sprouts of tulip
and daffodil
poke through the well-
drained soil. One

thinks of espionage,
a listening post
gathering intelligence
from weather and sending
it to handlers underground.

Some of the sprouts
look like a green cat's
ears. They hear the jazz
of warmth. Others seem
the shape of the tip
of the trowel used
by some hulking mammal
in clothes, planting
sadly in October,
preparing the floral
resurrection grave.

hans ostrom

"Spuds"--yes, a potato poem

Gardener's Soft Porn

After the first seed-catalogue
arrives in Winter,  I paw through
it as eagerly as I gawked
at my older brother's
Playboy when I was 15.


hans ostrom, 2013