Tag: gardening

poetry

Mariah Leach’s Defiant Daffodils

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Photo by Mariah Zebrowski Leach.

Mariah Leach’s Defiant Daffodils

They were such a steady sign of spring
and, more than that,
of hope and the extravagant beauty
the cold ground could hold
that they captivated her gaze
year after year,
and she couldn’t help but see them
and celebrate their joyful presence
with at least one quick photo.
Looking back now
a parade of children joined them
also beckoned by the intense gold
when sun lit petal cells until they glowed.

Now they’ve pushed through
the burned crust of what was,
the tips of their long green leaves
yellowed by flame, singed
but still singing their spring song.
They refuse not to witness,
to not assert joy in a scene
where despair is easy to give way to.

This is what we do:
we press on and up
pushing aside impervious barriers
finding the sun through the intense dark cold.
We stand defiant among the wreckage.
We simply do what we’ve been made to do.
We grow. We shine.

poetry

germinating

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germinating

Today the sunflower seeds have split.
They sit like toques on tall green crowns,
leaves not yet spread
but muscled up from the soil
after the kiss of drenched earth
swelled them to bursting,
sent them twisting upward
toward the slow fire of sunlight.
Now their subterranean selves
are held in midair,
incontrovertible evidence that buried potential
may emerge into the light.

My son, fourteen, has sowed plenty of other seeds,
but is still stirred to see so plainly
the black-and-white striped husks
perched atop the sprung green.

Now the cells of these new sprouts
should keep splitting until they, too,
bear golden crowns surrounding
the next generation of smooth striped packets of hope
ready to be pushed into the waiting earth,
ready to split and rocket into light after only
a week’s worth of sunrises and sets.

My son sits paused at the end of boyhood
waiting for the silent prompt that sends
his own cells doubling, his blonde crown
also stretching to sun. He waits, and takes on faith
that like the simple black seeds,
his body houses the knowledge needed
to transform and grow,
to shed one phase for the next,
to thrive in the light.

poetry

eating from a poisoned earth

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https://assets.bouldercounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022-02-16-Assessing-garden-safety-final.pdf

eating from a poisoned earth

what’s on the ground
will be in the air
what’s in the air
will be in the water
what’s in the water
will be in the earth
what’s in the earth
will be in the chard
what’s in the chard
will be in us

but it’s such an imperfect world anyway
plastics already inside us like albatrosses
endocrine disruptors and lead from the windowsills
plutonium from Rocky Flats or Fukushima or Chernobyl
or whatever else is going to happen in Ukraine:
we’re porous and poisoned already

but to not sow
to not reap
to not eat from our own patch of earth
might damage our hearts more
than the dust of someone’s incinerated fridge
(I believe,
but don’t know)

poetry

A Little Noticing

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Thanksgiving: Animals

A Little Noticing

In our little yard today I spied

a red-mustached flicker
hammering away at the powerline pole
and the hole

a male house sparrow with only
half a beard
(out-of-breeding-season plumage)

two wildly different grasshoppers and

a velvet-black jumping spider
in and out of the bed.

Who knows how many other souls
I failed to find
and
what they meant to say,
blessed hearts beating
a wall away from mine
living our own loops
hiding deep in our snug holes.

poetry

cuttings

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cuttings

one small olive-green leaf
with waxy white bloom
laid gently on a soft bed of soil
will not rest
first it will root
leaf meristem will morph
become what is needed
for this time and place
discover how to grow down
into the deep silent dark
how to become acquainted
with the ways of worms
the frequencies of underground sound
life without wind sun stars
the pressure and exactitude
of finding each fine fissure
where the tiniest root hair might take hold
and then, only after
leaf has tied itself to earth,
it will go back to stretching
trying the feel of new aspects
finding a way to elevate
the flow of energy
to enter the upright world again
with the exhilaration of becoming
more than the world knew
when one first awoke

poetry

Michal

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In memory of Michal Rae Graber. Photos are from Old Sheep Meadows Nursery.

Michal

her skilled hands turned out wonders:
hemmed curtains and flowery aprons
perfect pies from the tiniest kitchen
heirloom roses and brand-new daylilies
gardens planned with secluded nooks and deliberate views
seven fiercely independent and loyal children
a crisp white Federalist farmhouse that only grew better with time
and a completely different desert adobe
warm brown with cornflower blue-glazed window frames
that gazed on cacti with open affection

she moved with surprising efficiency
wielded a sharpshooter shovel
with more grace and speed at 60
than I could muscle at 20
and drove the big old blue truck loaded with bouquets
through the Old Port’s maze without blinking

if you complimented her
she’d fold her glasses-on-a-string
lean across the table
say I don’t know
but widen her laughing eyes
and give her head a little shake
simultaneously accepting and denying your praise

she gave me hugs
and paid-odd jobs
a home away from home
and a wonderful forever-friend
her littlest girl
whose hair she’d brush
just for the soothing closeness

most of all she wished to be gracious
to leave the world more beautiful
than before her hard work began
and though she’s more than earned her rest
we can’t help but mourn
for the cozy old keeping room
will never be the same