Daily, when my wife waters our drying flora
Morning and evening during summer months,
Her mood blooms atop weeklong seed grass,
Our sun-baked garden speaks to her, more a
Maiden chorus greeting their sister at once,
Seeds fallen in turns, gathered and nurtured
Since wind shapes reeds into narrow rows,
A random symmetry, pleasing to the naked
Eye, relaxed yet measurable, raw untutored
Gratitude absorbed into hollowed veins so as
To fall like leaves every year blown and raked
Again and repeated so many times a pattern
Immerges with careful strokes, a hurried brush
Against earthen tones, the lively palette turns
Into a steering wheel like the rings of Saturn
Became the millstone, formerly used to crush
The long grain sustenance a deity ever yearns
His creations partake, to share equal measures
According to seasons of plenty and not despair
One’s self of silently giving without the beggar
Begging, without liquefying worldly treasures
At auction advertised as sampling the local fare,
An unwary stranger opens your pickled fig jar
Before coins arrange into a scrum of flat layers,
Circles with heads and tails that celebrate your
Modest success in parting with fruit you know
Our grandchildren remembered in their prayers
At night before bedtime stories darkened pure
Hearts with heroes whose horses made of snow
And fresh loyalty born of breeding in long rains,
Breaking sweats, records, skin, bones on windy
Roads, twisting and blowing rusted clotheslines
Sprung tightly around the antique weathervanes
Every mile or so another neighbor deeper in the
Throws of their harvest, fruits of St. Valentines
Burden the upper shelves of basement pantries,
Each canned jar a rural comfort beacon, sealed
Lids polished, golden beaming fresh preserves
Through decades that tarnish careful gallantries
With cloudless memories of watering revealed
Savored drops of rain such gardening deserves.
Morning and evening during summer months,
Her mood blooms atop weeklong seed grass,
Our sun-baked garden speaks to her, more a
Maiden chorus greeting their sister at once,
Seeds fallen in turns, gathered and nurtured
Since wind shapes reeds into narrow rows,
A random symmetry, pleasing to the naked
Eye, relaxed yet measurable, raw untutored
Gratitude absorbed into hollowed veins so as
To fall like leaves every year blown and raked
Again and repeated so many times a pattern
Immerges with careful strokes, a hurried brush
Against earthen tones, the lively palette turns
Into a steering wheel like the rings of Saturn
Became the millstone, formerly used to crush
The long grain sustenance a deity ever yearns
His creations partake, to share equal measures
According to seasons of plenty and not despair
One’s self of silently giving without the beggar
Begging, without liquefying worldly treasures
At auction advertised as sampling the local fare,
An unwary stranger opens your pickled fig jar
Before coins arrange into a scrum of flat layers,
Circles with heads and tails that celebrate your
Modest success in parting with fruit you know
Our grandchildren remembered in their prayers
At night before bedtime stories darkened pure
Hearts with heroes whose horses made of snow
And fresh loyalty born of breeding in long rains,
Breaking sweats, records, skin, bones on windy
Roads, twisting and blowing rusted clotheslines
Sprung tightly around the antique weathervanes
Every mile or so another neighbor deeper in the
Throws of their harvest, fruits of St. Valentines
Burden the upper shelves of basement pantries,
Each canned jar a rural comfort beacon, sealed
Lids polished, golden beaming fresh preserves
Through decades that tarnish careful gallantries
With cloudless memories of watering revealed
Savored drops of rain such gardening deserves.