While digging
in the garden rows,
my son looks up
from his work
of ripping apart a clump
of roots and says to me,
Mom, how could
anything ever go wrong
with this day,
and I think,
my darling,
you teach me
so beautifully.
There are days
we forget that life
will unfold for us
if we let it.
It’s not that nothing
could go wrong.
Of course it will.
But if we are not
the heroes of our
days, rather the narrators
who notice and relate
all the events,
whether cheerful or tragic,
with equal interest,
well then even
the wrong things
are right. As it is,
he does not step
barefoot on the hoe
with its spikes
turned up nor do I
hobble to the house
with a back too sore
to stand. And the day
unfolds as some days
do, with nearly nothing
to report except the
weather—warm,
some clouds, the sun
still gaining—and
a mother and son
got the planting done.
Nothing to show for it yet
except the smile on my face
and the dirt still under
his fingernails. But I have
to admit I am glad there was
nothing painful or difficult.
And on this day, my son
is the hero of the poem.
And I can watch his mother
typing out her joy as if
I am not the same woman.
Between these two view points,
there is a garden. I walk
its rows. I bring it water.
What grows is what will grow.
Posts Tagged ‘gardening’
Who is Telling the Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gardening, hero, mother, narrator, poem, poetry, satsang, son on May 12, 2013 | 8 Comments »
The Gardener Goes to the Carnival Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged carnival, gardening, haiku, nostalgia, poem on June 22, 2012 | 3 Comments »
spinning on the tilt-a-whirl
scent of tomato leaves
still on my hands
Beyond What I Can Know
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing things to be, gardening, love, poem, poetry on June 9, 2012 | 3 Comments »
I plant the seeds
and the wind
carries them away.
They were small,
the size of
the word love
typed 12-point
in this poem,
and the beauty I imagined
would come from them
so great.
*
Where does
longing come
from?
Nothing wrong
with it,
says my teacher,
as long as
it is opening
us.
*
I plant the seeds
and the critters
I never seem to see
nibble the green shoots
in the night
until there is
nothing left.
*
It is not true
that there
is nothing
left.
Here I am.
Love.
There you are.
*
Now the edamame
on the other hand,
they leap
from the dirt,
bless them.
*
Into a bowl
I sing
a blue song.
*
Just as the seed
buried in the dark
seeks light,
the light
too,
seeks the dark,
seeks everything
that is not
light.
*
It never
comes
the way
I will expect
it will.
Look at
these melons
volunteering
in every corner
of the garden.
*
I tell myself
the dirt
is also
beautiful,
the dirt
where the flowers
would have been.
I almost
believe it.
*
Not quite.
*
If a woman
sings in a bowl
and there is
no one there
to hear her,
did she
make a sound?
*
In my hand,
more seeds.
I plant some of them
just the way
the directions say.
Some of them
I throw
to the wind.
