EARTH MOTHERS

In caves and museums she’s pregnant, or sitting with a baby hanging from her breast. Or she’s a giant on a throne, piles of fruit stacked on her huge thighs. In shops, among crystals and beads, she’s young: long-hair, small waist, bare feet. She wears flowing gowns, flowers in her hair. By her side a wolf, or a lioness, over her shoulder a crescent moon. Even if she’s old, her gray hair flows like water, she’s slim as a broom, the hands that hold the cornstalk are smooth and elegant. She’s always clean. She doesn’t look like Meg or me.

We wore old sneakers, baggy jeans that had seen better days, our sons’ outgrown t-shirts, baseball caps over our graying hair. While Rob drove the tractor through the orchard digging holes in the clay with his long screw, we followed, planting the slips of trees, their orange roots wet and coiled, their little buds ready to break open green. We kicked dirt into the holes, stamped out air bubbles, hoed, stamped again. Our rough hands in their grubby gloves braced the purple sticks, unlikely babies, while we circled them, stamping, in the light spring rain.