All summer it’s been twisting and winding,
twining around sunflowers,
stretching across pathways,
climbing the pea vines and the tall wire fence.
If there is a fairy godmother of flowers,
she must have said to the bindweed,
“I bless you with tenacity.” And forever since,
it has lived up to her generosity.
Why do I curse it for its persistence,
when I, myself, have made a life out of stubbornness?
Oh foolish woman who longs for beauty,
but pulls the bindweed before it is beautiful,
before its pale pink flowers open to morning
delicate as certainty.
Such a dilemma when gardening – what lives and what dies.
weeds, and also the thinning .. which I hate, but I realize the more I thin, the happier the plants are … and this year, oh my goodness, the lettuce I’ve grown i prizewinning!!!
impossible to not take the metaphor out of the garden …