In harvest bronze the morning sun
gilds the whorling dill:
the year is old but be it known
that there’s a new day still.
And newness goes with every seed
into a time unknown,
bearing fragile hope
from the present that we own.
Tag Archives: herbs
July 7.20: Coping
Three thyme transplants —
I didn’t need more —
when I went to water,
lo, there were four!
A second look,
I gasped agog:
I’m such a good gardener
I grew a frog!
April 7.20: Coping
“Lavender blue”
and “lavender green”
a few “dilly-dilly’s”
and “you’ll be my queen.”
I never could figure
the words to this song
but that didn’t stop me
from singing along.
I find peace in my garden
and old-timey words
where twitters and tweets
come only from birds.
Family update: my son had “a bit of a relapse” yesterday.
He is being careful.
January 12.20
The greening of the lavender
along the garden border
in April welcomed cordially,
in January, out of order.
We’re doused with April showers,
winter coats hang limp in closets;
there’s dank insinuation
that such misplacement posits.
Winter April such as this
seems not at all auspicious;
gardeners grow no seedlings
but only more suspicious.
Winter can be bitter,
and gardeners hate the wait,
but they worry when the earth
seems to de-regulate.
Meanwhile, though, they slog around
amid the muddied swells,
rejoicing through a happy nose:
how good the wet earth smells!
Connections: August 30.17
“It’s not easy being green”
Kermit sighed in song
the blindingly emerald parsley
argues the frog is wrong.
Connections: August 26.17
Dill feathers
butterfly tickles
dill seeds
crock of pickles
dill bones
pinwheel spindled
tale of life
ripening, dwindled.
Connections: August 20.17
The dill inspectors
all hardhat
ignored me when
I stopped to chat.
Summer’s old!
No time to loll!
Soon the clock strikes
half-past fall!
Connections: July 27.17
A frilly dot of marigold
a snip of lemon thyme
a dainty plume of tarragon
phlox snow at fragrant prime
radiant brown-eyed Susans
Rudbeckia at the crown:
smallness revels in itself
sans the world’s renown.
Connections: July 25.17
When July heat breaks
and it’s good to be alive
Coreopsis taps her toes
and dances with the chive.
Connections: July 11.17
When July comes out to play,
bouncing on trampoline leaf,
climbing monkey bar stems,
sliding down the smooth
shiny pepper,
cartwheeling,
hopscotching,
hide-and-seeking in
herb tunnels,
and no one knows
how green the world can be
until the hot light leap-frogs
over itself
and we wish we could snatch it
this limpid summer air
but
unpossessable
it mocks
catch me if you can!
like childhood,
then does the garden dapple
make us stop
to fetch a memory.
