July 25.22: Coping, but barely

A garden in a kettle,

what enticement to know more;

no ordinary flowerpot

hints so of family lore.

Kettles are like aprons,

remnants, scraps and shreds

of kitchens gone to dust

except inside our heads.

Replaced by kitchen jewelry

gleaming, digitized,

its plump and stolid air

is yet unbowdlerized.

Something in its roundness

brings noodle dough to mind,

vegetable soup with barley,

doughnuts cinnamon-brined,

children up on tip-toe

to watch and sniff, content,

the world in proper order

as it was surely meant.

Today its storied depths

give rise to happy greenery,

rooted, like our memories,

in distant kitchen scenery.

 

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg,

and to gardener and family preservationist D.J. Berg.

 

Disconnections: June 12.18

Basking in my sunshine

snuggling on my fence

this manic excavator

is pure impertinence

taunting me, Goliath,

feigning innocence

as though his bright-eyed smallness

masked malevolence

but I know his evil habits

— curse his tiny hide! —

he’s only biding time

’til Goliath goes inside.

 

 

Connections: November 28.17

When you’ve decked your deck with autumn hues

of scarlet, gold and light chartreuse

you don’t expect what can appear

when summer leaves a souvenir.

Nobody planted it but itself

no phantom gnome or garden elf

it had to see, after hearing the tout,

what Thanksgiving and Christmas were all about.

 

 

Thanks again to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives

and D.J. Berg’s green (and yellow and red) thumb.

 

Connections: June 4.17

A garden is where you make it

on patio or sill:

God created flowerpots

as Eden’s codicil.

 

 

More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives

and to the D.J. Berg green thumb.

Connections