Poem with an explanation: Rows

the sun rises,
the sun sets,
the moon rises,
the moon sets,
imprints in the soil,
a row of jade,
a row of copper,
a row of emerald,
a row of copper,
iron falls,
mountains rise,
valleys form,
meteors fall,
mountains erode,
a fox runs,
the sun rises,
the sun sets,


This poem is about gardening.  The first six lines are about a person putting off doing work in their garden.  Days pass, nights pass and weeks pass.  The circles refer to cycles in time related to the sun and moon.

The seventh line imprints in the soil are about the moment the person stops putting off the task, and walks out to the garden.  The person walking is referenced by their footsteps.  The steps being in soil, are a reference to gardening.

The next four lines are about two garden beds.  Each bed had two types of seeds planted in it.  Over time, one type of seed in each bed sprouted, but the other didn’t.  Looking at the beds, this would look like a row of green and a row of brown in one bed, then another row of green and a row brown in the other bed.  This is referenced in the poem as the row of jade then copper and the row of emerald then copper.

In the next five lines, the person in the poem plants new seeds where the first set of seeds did not sprout.  The person uses a rake (iron falls), they pull the soil back (mountains rise), they drop seeds (meteors fall), and they cover the seeds with the soil they pulled back (mountains erode).

The next three lines describe the seeds being watered.  The rains line is about the water starting to come from the hose, the a fox runs line is about a dog who was near the garden, who ran away when the water started to flow from the hose, and the floods line is about the garden being watered.

The next three lines refer to the person waiting to see if the new seeds sprout.