I am a landowner, which is a class distinction of old. I own an acre of land with an enormous boulder which my children can climb on and from which I can watch the lake and valley below, and the mountains across the way. I own fruit trees and sage brush and little yellow plants which will become tumbleweeds if I don't rototill them away. I own a big pile of sheep shit, which I will use to fertilize my garden. I own a bevy of wild rabbits and the holes they live in. I own the yard that the robin visits each morning and the front window where the sun sets each evening.

I am a landowner, paying the property taxes inherent in such a title. I can now go be the gardener of Pablo Neruda's poem, "Ode to a Woman Gardening."

This earth sign is putting down roots deep into the soil, where she will be nourished and kept close to those things she loves.