Must He Always Remember?

I started to write a poem about the allotments where I grow vegetables, but disturbing memories intruded on that calm, civc space. The poem was recently published in the wonderful magazine Crannóg, but unfortunately it appeared there without the stanza breaks, so I am posting the accurate version here.

Must he always remember?

This is our unroofed civic church.
We gather here on days of prayer
to clear the weeds and turn the earth,
lean on our spades, discussing who’s
done well, whose plot’s in good or bad repair;

comparing notes and sharing views
on what has flourished, what has failed,
the seeds and tools and skills we’ve used,
the slugs, the floods, the lack of rain,
who’s come or gone, which tools for sale.

We may forget our neighbours’ names—
our visits may not coincide—
but know each other, all the same,
by what we plant, and how it fares:
reflections of our other lives.

This year, within these ordered squares
and rows and lines of ordered green—
their angles softened, boundaries blurred
by sagging sheds, unfettered wind,
each gardener’s choices, drifting weeds—

the talk of strangers breaking in
recalls those other ordered fields
replete with coffee, sorghum, beans—
all swollen, ripe, unharvested—
on sun-stroked, still, abandoned hills.