I must apologize to the vines this year.
I was much too late in the pruning.
Instead of my cuts coming in the middle of winter,
when cold and ice have anesthetized
their limbs on cordons of frozen steel,
I was in my own darkness,
wrapped in a blanket that hindered action.
I merely bore out the short gray days and
stared impotently into the black nights.
Winter shook me like a dog shakes a snake in summer.

Instead, I come to them in a time
more comfortable for me–
A warming day,
knowing
that the necessary cuts come in Spring–
that  living sap will leak
because of my tardiness,
that I risk the health,
of buds,
of growth,
of flowers,
of fruit,
the wine.

I am sorry.
I will do better now.
Our chemistry is better applied this Spring.

I vow to better protect against living rabbits and deer,
against a thousand kinds of scuttling bugs,
against the single minded mania of birds
and greedy ground squirrels.
The end-of-the-season Autumn battle
will be fierce.

I cannot be certain of next November
or her cruelest shorter sister February,
But I can offer the summer, still with hope.