My son’s back yard
yields prodigiously,
vegetable-glutted
because rabbit-free.
So I have tomatoes
in my grandma’s old bowl —
what better emblem
of summer’s warm soul?
Such joy to the eye,
such promise of bliss —
the Louvre should have
such beauty as this!
Gaura gossip
cannot wait;
it’s the latest
in click-bait.
To tease the marigold
hovering near,
it’s whispered in
geranium ear.
Good for the garden,
of that I am sure,
gossip so often
a form of manure.
Aesop says be like the ant,
eschew grasshopper ways:
the ant puts by and plans ahead,
grasshoppers waste their days.
The ants in frantic harvest
prepare for winter’s grey.
The grasshopper, all moony,
ponders the green of today;
in foolery like writing
does he his muse pursue;
he yearns to be a poet
and use words like “eschew.”
Many more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
I have no idea how he got the grasshopper to pose like this.
In the time of two breaths
there’s the twilight sweet spot
when everything hovers
between color and not.
White becomes silver
as shadows unfurl,
or maybe it’s pewter
or mother-of-pearl;
reds turn to velvet
with lavender nap,
blues, cupric sulfate,
with diamond wrap.
Yellows to brass
with gold overlays,
burnished in hot coal,
smoldering blaze.
And a palette is born
each day at its end
that no words can capture
but only pretend.
I was feeling garden-poor,
so took my little black pitcher,
snipped some mighty color,
and felt a whole lot richer.
I’ve planted my person
on many a seat,
but the best was there
on Summer Street.
Grandma’s porch
with swing for two,
where summer breezes
lazied through,
was where I learned
what sages know:
if I want to be quick
I must first be slow.
Back and forth,
I moved unmoving,
Grandma too,
our own kind of grooving.
Words fell away,
we floated as one;
I can still feel her housedress
all cottony spun.
The cricket sang softly,
far ice cream bells jingled
a summon to vespers
with leaf whispers mingled.
So today a swing sighting
is potently rife
with certainties given
to last all my life.
A Coke for the world
was a once wishful sing,
but I’d write new words
and wish it a swing.
Yet more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg
for this wonderful portrait of invitation.
Sic transit…
Yes, this is the zinnia you met in my last post.
Does one zinnia a summer make?
This is my one and only zinnia flower. The seedlings that lived with me in the kitchen months ago, transplanted into the garden where they would be the yippee colors of summer, were almost all destroyed by the rabbits. Except for a few which I triaged into pots and then transplanted yet again, desperate for them to make a showing.
The results:
And one flower.
I plant tomatoes to remember Grandpa Mauck, moss roses to remember Grandma O’Hern, and marigolds to remember Dad. Mom is in the whole garden. So, as all gardeners know, the garden is not just expensive, it’s personal. The rabbits tried to take it all from me, and right now on this planet every loss is part of a huge rolling snowball of loss — and helplessness.
If there’s anything I hate, it’s feeling helpless. Life demands at times that we resign ourselves to it, but I can get pretty mad about that. I have lived to wage war this summer. I have potted and repotted and have fought the good fight with Irish Spring soap, rubbing it on flowerpots and shaving it around plants. And I have installed rose canes, which do seem to have some persuasive powers.
I have ultimately saved a small garden corner where my one surviving clump of gaura now thrives, the rabbit-scorned geraniums blaze away, and, in sheer defiance, some marigolds and salvia, once tattered, bloom insanely. Several of those triaged potted things have made a brilliant, if root-bound, showing.
I salute Farmer McGregor, the Grand Pooh-Bah of Rabbit Rage. I aspire to his greatness.
This unpleasant-looking fellow
appears to think that he
has right of way and title
to private property.
I am sure I heard harrumph!
as I dared to hover near;
suspiciously he eyed me
with arrogant bug leer.
“My mentor was a Klingon”
(how absurdly braggadocious)
“who considered me outstanding,
in point of fact, precocious.”
“Cloaking device engaged!”
he proclaimed as he lifted and veered
to a multi-green leafy lilac
and forthwith disappeared.
Those Olympians of digestion,
with their steely eating power,
the rabbits made me go next door
to borrow a cup of flower.
My next-door neighbor’s floofy Rose of Sharon.
The rabbits can’t reach these.
No doubt they will evolve soon with giraffe necks.
Oddments 