Harvest comes soon,
the greens rich and deep,
how touchable, sniffable
the twining leafed keep.
A scruffy-kneed gardener
with nails edged in black
beams notwithstanding
the crick in his back.
It’s ever a miracle —
don’t try to explain
how seeds and a longing
are linked in life’s chain.
With thanks again to my back-yard gardener son,
for both the photo op and the basil!
Gather ye pollen
while ye may
in warm and bright
September day.
Tender zest,
to flower,
to seed —
thus does garden
(and life)
proceed.
With apologies to Robert Herrick.
This wee shiny thing
as bold as you please
is turning my basil
into leafy Swiss cheese.
So much for the pesto
I sigh with a shrug
but perhaps amuse-bouche
made out of bug.
In pungent symmetry
the basil’s manifesto:
when I grow up I’ll be
the bravissimo of pesto.
Basil’s best before it blooms
avers gastronomy
it’s more delish
less amateurish
but don’t tell that to the bee.
“Move over!” “YOU move over!” “I was here first!”
Ah, September in the herb garden. The madding crowd.
Yesterday I ran away to the library. I had to write. More specifically, I had to tweak something I’d written a while ago. Just tweaks — nothing to it, yes? My writer’s brain was this herb corner: crowded and madding. The words pushed and shoved. I wrote and wrote. And crossed out and crossed out.
After an hour, I had twenty-eight words that possibly maybe perhaps were the right ones. Why, with such thick growth, is there such a meager, tentative harvest?
Holy pupae, Batman! This guy is huge!
This is not the striped fellow I showed you a few days ago;
this one dwells on the shady side of the parsley,
under the basil.
As I respectfully backed away from it, something else caught my eye:
Part hummingbird, part catfish.
Something that oughtn’t be flying around my garden.
Something I’d never seen before.
It gave me the creeps.
Google tells me it is a hummingbird moth. That is even creepier.
Meanwhile
two birds the size of 747s settled on my neighbor’s chimney.
Ugly things. Vaguely ominous.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources says they are turkey vultures,
graceful, intelligent, and
“Peace Eagles,” according to the Cherokee Nation.
More, they are curious about humans.
(Well, who isn’t?)
Good gracious, I hope they weren’t too curious about ME —
I’d been working in hot humidity — how closely did I resemble roadkill?
Monster caterpillars, flying catfish, chummy vultures.
Enough of summer!
I’m ready for fall!
Good-bye, August!
August countdown.
Oddments 