lamb's ear

my father never used gardening gloves.
instead, he reached into the soil
with his bare hands. all summer we worked
on the church garden. carnations & poppies.
my favorite plant was the lamb's ear.
i would get down on my knees to feel 
the ears between my forefinger & thumb.
when my father was off working somewhere else
on the church grounds, i would lay down
against the earth. i would put my ear
to the lamb's ears & just listen to their softness.
did you know an ear can speak? a voice
full of rain & green. i once plucked a lead
to take home with me. thanked the plant
over & over & still felt guilty.
i laid the ear down on my pillow & listened
on into the night. became fluent in 
their language of softness. two ears making
a spaceship into our velvet dark. when i returned
i brought a handful of blueberries. the ears always
had room for me in their warm earth. 
my father eventually got bored of the garden.
we stopped going & the mulch shifted.
some of the flowers stopped returning 
each year. i have not been there for years
but i hope the lamb's ear remained. 
most of what i loved about church 
was not the building & definitely not
the terror words about my soft flesh.
instead, i craved the fields & the forest
around it. the statue of mary where my father
planted twelve ferns, one for each apostle.
inside each leaf we planted was a little god,
hungry & ringing. i like to imagine the lamb's ear
bigger now & wild without a tender. 
maybe still wayward children come
& find a space for their softness 
to be cradled as it should be.