They don’t like it. For a day,
maybe two, they’ll hang limp
in the beds. I try to talk them
through it, try to tell them
it will be okay. But no one
wants to hear it will be okay
when it feels as if
the world is ending,
especially not nasturtiums—
nasturtiums can’t hear,
which makes me wonder
how much of what I say
to comfort others is really
intended to comfort myself.
In two days, the nasturtiums
will be upright and bright.
And I’ll praise them, tell them
I knew they could do it,
tell them how resilient they are.
Posts Tagged ‘garden’
Transplanting the Nasturtiums
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, garden, resilience, self talk on July 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Crashing into the Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, garden, high school, memory on July 1, 2021| 7 Comments »
for Marne
And though we have not spoken
in over thirty years, today I invite
the memory of my friend to walk
with me in the garden.
That girl would laugh
to learn I’ve become a woman
who weeds, who waters, who grows.
We were uncultivated together,
unrooted, unmanicured,
and blossoming anyway,
windblown and wandering and wild.
I bring that sweet madness now
into the tidy rows and marvel
at how things change.
For a moment, I am running with her
over a hill and spinning
and crashing and laughing.
For a moment, I am again that girl
who is more dream than flesh,
more wish than should, more
me than I ever could be.
How beautiful the song of that memory,
how it rhymes even now with whatever
is green in me.
Even now, I am running,
spinning, crashing, though anyone looking
at the garden might think
I am peacefully deadheading flowers,
talking to the spinach,
painstakingly pulling the weeds.
Again. Again.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cosmos, death, frost, garden, spring on May 25, 2021| 2 Comments »
Almost every spring, I forget them,
the six packs of cosmos starts on the porch.
All it takes is one cold night,
an innocence of frost.
By dawn, the buds slightly droop.
By noon, the leaves hang darkened and limp.
By the next day, they’re black.
And dead.
It’s a familiar story. How one night
changes everything. How one day
I’m blooming, thriving, alive,
the next all I’d grown is gone.
I used to believe all was lost.
I used to throw the whole plant away.
But I learned what is dead serves as a blanket
to protect whatever still lives.
Wait, and in days, a tiny green filigree
emerges from the base.
In a month or two, it’s a bask of blooms,
no trace of how bleak it was.
Such tender study, the cosmos.
Blame is no part of their process.
They let what’s been lost be of service.
They know they are here to grow.
Love, Like Mint
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, love, mint, mother, parenting on May 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Of course I knew the mint
would take over the pansy garden—
I planted it anyway.
Now the garden is overrun
with thick ropes of roots
and there’s mint in everything—
the garden, the lawn,
my hands. Even if I tried
to pull it all out, it would return
with its cool, bright scent of resilience.
It is, perhaps, similar to the way
a mother thinks she knows
just how deep the roots of love
will go. But I, I had no idea
how, despite drought, despite
poor soil, love’s runners
would spread through every
inch of my life, untameable,
and just when I might think it gone,
new sprouts erupt
fragrant and green,
sweet and fresh,
everywhere, everywhere.
I Don’t Know
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, not knowing, spring, surprise, words on May 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Today, I notice something green
spearing through the dirt
in the garden, and only
because there are eight such spears
rising in perfect rows do I vaguely remember
last year I planted bulbs there,
but I don’t remember what they are.
How much of the beauty we plant
do we forget?
There is so much in me that grows
because of words you have sown.
I doubt you remember them,
I don’t remember them, either,
only that your words were kind
and now they have taken root.
Who knows what the flowers
will look like? I water them, though,
trust I’ll be delighted when they bloom
into a garden of beautiful I don’t know.
Because Surrender to What Is Doesn’t Mean Do Nothing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged frost, garden, love, surrender on September 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Inside my heart is a gardener.
She knows eventually
all seeds planted in the heart
will die. That doesn’t stop her
from planting. And on a night
when she knows it will frost—
winter, after all, comes soon—
that doesn’t stop her
from rummaging around for blankets
to cover everything in bloom.
You could just let it go,
says some other inner voice.
Nothing lasts forever.
She pauses to listen.
Perhaps all she’ll get is one more week—
one more week of lush and unruly beauty,
one more week of riotous love.
It’s late and she’s tired.
She grabs another blanket.
Damn right, she’ll fight for it.
Finding Faith
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beets, faith, garden, truth on September 20, 2020| 8 Comments »
While pulling the beets,
it’s impossible to lose faith
in the world. Those tiny seeds
that once fit in the palm are now
large red globes,
dense with dark sweetness
and heavy in the hand.
They are like promises kept,
like small proofs in patience,
confirmations that sometimes
the good that’s growing can’t be seen.
They are like hard truths.
Not everyone will want them.
Some will.
Forecast
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, frost, garden, time on September 6, 2020| 8 Comments »
In two nights, the killing frost will come.
Because I know this, I wander the garden
and talk to the broccoli, the nasturtiums,
the cilantro. I thank the beets for their willingness
to grow. I tell the onions what is coming.
Tomorrow I will pick enormous bouquets
and fill the house with orange flowers.
Tomorrow I will sit in the garden
and try to store the beauty in my body
though I know it doesn’t work that way.
Please, just one more day, just one more month,
just one more life to try to get it right,
just one more chance to be as attentive
as I am when I know it is almost over,
the basil dark green, the marigolds crinkling with gold.
Bindweed in the Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bindweed, certainty, garden, stubbornness on July 25, 2020| 2 Comments »
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.