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Posts Tagged ‘garden’

One in the Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 18, 2026| 4 Comments »

 

 
so soon the pink dahlia petals
begin to shrivel and dry,
and look at these hands 
that cut away what is dead,
they, too, are dahlia

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One Reflection

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 30, 2026| 2 Comments »

standing in the garden
I gaze into the first sunflower—
mirror with a golden frame

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While Transplanting Calendula

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 2, 2026| 2 Comments »


 
How gently I move the volunteer sprouts
out of the potato bed and into another row,
careful to gather the fragile roots with a bit
of damp dirt, tamping lightly around the slender stem.
How fragile it all can be. I think of how tenderly
this morning my husband touched my face,
as if too well aware of how a single moment
can change everything. We folded 
into each other then like two petals
of a single flower. In the garden, 
I stare at the spindly transplants, 
a new row of tiny, rounded green leaves.
A delicate ache rises in me, charged with
love for the spare beauty of what is here
and an awareness of how the simplest scrape 
can make a whole world disappear.

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What Goes On

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 25, 2026| 5 Comments »


Knowing it will grow back tomorrow
does not stop me from pulling
the bindweed today. Once I pulled 
bindweed as if the goal was to clear it 
from the garden. Now, I pull bindweed 
as if the goal is to love this act of being 
alive, this ritual of pulling bindweed, my 
daughter beside me, soft easy chatter 
rising between us.        There is no blessing 
or disaster yet that has ended this 
communion of tugging on the long white 
roots. Somehow, in this season of 
endings, the bindweed seems to promise
tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. 
 

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 Over Time 

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 18, 2026| 2 Comments »

 

 
The way my grandmother tended 
to her daylilies, that is the way
I want to attune to your words—
knowing how each utterance blooms
only briefly, but when cared for,
the plant itself is hardy, long lasting,
abundant, able to survive both
heat and chill, both loam and clay. 
Come love, whisper to me. 
I cherish every petal. And when
there is no bloom, I have learned 
water and fertilize anyway, to honor
the place where the bloom will be.  

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Listening to Glen Velez in a Garden in Ohio

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 7, 2026| 5 Comments »

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At the Center of the Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »


 
 
When no one
is looking
she touches
the wound
that hides
beneath
her smile
where the scion
of acceptance
was grafted 
to her rootstock
of stubbornness.
Most people
don’t notice
the scar,
focused as they are
on the fruit,
but she 
remembers
the cut, 
the tissue exposed.
How tenderly
she traces
that place
where the union
was formed. 
Since the wounding,
her fruits 
have become 
vibrant, complex, 
so sharp, even tart, 
and so sweet.
 

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The Arrangement

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 30, 2026| 8 Comments »


 
 
Because touch is one way we offer praise, 
this morning I touch my ears 
to the see-sawing song of birds 
in the tree beside me. I still myself
to focus on their song, and they stop 
singing, as if to tease. I touch my ears 
to the silence where the song is not. 
Touch the warm tones of wind chimes 
stirred by a breeze I barely feel. 
Touch the hum of the cars
and the growl of a motorcycle I’d rather 
shut out. I think of how my grandmother 
used grass, even weeds in her flower arrangements. 
She taught me you could make anything beautiful.
I try to stop slandering the traffic noise
and gather it into an audible bouquet complete
with birds, chimes, silence, my breath. 
How to make the unwelcome welcome? 
How to hold tension in ways that compliment? 
All morning, all day, I practice opening 
to what isn’t easy to love. I make a vase
of the moment. Add all the sound that’s here. 
So much I’d rather not to listen to. 
I think of my grandmother. I try to find 
new ways to hear.  

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In Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 28, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
 
In soil not yet worked this spring,
two perfect rows of parsley emerge 
in a curly leafed celebration of green, 
vestiges from last year’s planting.
Where is not garden? 
Good hands, what will you do 
with this new trust rising
out of what looked like failure?

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One Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 28, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
I am no longer surprised
when strange, exotic
blooms appear in my mind,
knowing now how seeds
arrive on the wind from everywhere.
Now, I am less likely to label
something weed simply because
I didn’t plant it myself.
At the same time, I want
to be discerning, knowing
whatever I choose to grow might
appear soon in the soil of you,
so I am cautious when sowing
bulbs of anger, saplings of judgment,
thorns of certainty.
I want us all to plant great beds
of unanswerable questions
and tend the mystery together.
How else might it change
what these hands do when I
trust every choice matters?

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