Baptism by Dirt
For Shauna
All believers know about the power of water
though not enough about the power of dirt.
My mama used to walk barefooted
in our vegetable garden,
get down on her hands and knees
and almost pray in the dirt.
My wife and I and our two-year-old
built and planted three raised-bed gardens.
Watching her dip her fingers into the dirt
to coddle what will feed us
reminds me of mama and then.
What is it that women know
about nurturing a seed into a piece of fruit,
about believing in the power of dirt
and suns and water?
I return from our labor with sore knees
and back, fingernails and hands caked with dirt.
She floats back into the house cleaner,
somehow less burdened,
as if she spent the weekend
burying all her heavy things,
as if she whispered to something sacred
and it whispered something back.
Notes:
“Baptism by Dirt” is reprinted from Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems (Accents Publishing, 2020) and is part of the folio “Frank X Walker: Kinfolk.” Read the rest of the folio in the January/February 2026 issue of Poetry.
Source: Poetry (January/February 2026)