WHAT TO DO WITH REGRETS
By Kelly Averill Savino
I.Winter
In the rare, thin light of solstice
When bare trees branch like exposed nerve
endings
into a leaden sky
I hunch and clench across the ice, uneasy;
wake in the long dark remembering past
unfairnesses
small souvenirs best forgotten
old guilts and sorrows fragile and dry as
pale corsages crumbling to dust in an attic
box.
Uneasiness follows me through midwinter
days; seasonal blues and fear of karmic
retribution.
II.Spring
Each year around Easter
I welcome perspective, and set to
rebuilding redemption:
Contraption of salvaged pallets wired
to make a box.
Each year, resurrected,
poetic as Jesus, symbolic as Easter eggs:
My religion
is Compost. Nothing
is wasted, nothing is lost.
The best laid plans gone furry and soft
in the produce drawer,
ingredients still in a fertile stew
of clippings and leaf litter, dry twigs,
chickenshit, straw.
The whole wheat loaf of homemade
cinderblock,
raw veggies brought home
for the diets I didn't start.
Bulk purchased bargains gone buggy,
alone in the pantry for years.
Mistakes. Bad timing.
A cottage cheese carton
with a sinister bloat and a Christmas
expiration date.
from waste, abundance.
From error, wisdom.
III. Redemption
I am not Catholic, cannot confess.
I am not Buddhist, cannot Be Here Now.
So I dump my past into the composter,
stir with a pitchfork,
gather pink worms out of puddles to add to
the pile
and Nature, benevolent with forgiveness
makes rich black dirt
to work in the garden, to set about planting
seeds
And if sometimes a withered green onion
refuses to decompose
and grows
or a chunk of discarded potato
puts out roots and leaves
between the eggplant rows
if tomato seeds eaten by chickens return to
the garden to sprout unannounced
it's no longer the haunt of regret:
just reminder
that gifts come to those who allow for the
unexpected
another chance to do it right
another spring, returning light
hope is perennial
in the clear bright of day