My zinnia seeds sprouted,
and madly they grew
in red plastic bowl
but what could I do? —
Things went awry
time hurried on
they reached to the sky
and spring was all gone.
By the time they were planted
their roots all a-glob
I had to transplant them
in one big blob.
And so it begins
the garden in June
warm roots below
bright blooms aboon.
(Now try to say “bright blooms aboon” five times in a row without stopping.)
Noble king
in green assiduous
merry sprite
in lavender deciduous
roots entwined
in plots contiguous
each making the other
happily conspicuous.
Thanks yet again to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
When planting a granddaughter
take utmost care
let the roots
grow everywhere
fertilize with traditions
from Grandma’s haversack
but mostly give her space
and just stand back.
No matter
the sever
the hack and hew
’tis this way ever:
from the old
comes the new.
Painful the loss
of nurture and shade
but if roots hold firm
life is re-made.
Thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives for an image especially eloquent for today.
Chivelings!
Herbal babies, first to birth
wiggling roots in warming earth
slenderly poking this way and that
through winter swaddle, last year’s hat.
Newly voiced in green polyphony:
Canticum novum! Here I be!
Hooray for today!
Anniversary of me!
A wrinkly newborn
in 1943.
I came into a world
of war and ration
and still it seems
war is the fashion.
A birthday in January
makes perfect sense
it’s a two-headed time,
looking back and hence.
So I visit familiar faces
on my family wall
my genes, my leans, my rootings
perennial mysteries all.
I’d like to engage each one
in serious tete-a-tete
and ask my birthday question:
am I a grown-up yet?
A year ago
winter at the gates
I had three potted mums
bloomed out, bent.
I dumped one
unceremoniously
upside-down in the barren garden
thinking to dig it under in the spring
but then a thought:
why throw them under the trowel?
Maybe they can bloom again!
So I kept the other two in their pots and tucked them in near the house
sheltered
and bade them a good winter’s night.
Spring came.
The sheltered two, lifeless.
The one that had spent the winter on its head
roots frosted by the wind
snowmounded
was sprouting!
What An die Freude was there!
I planted it
with humble apologies
in the front
where now it glows
a perfect radiant sphere.
And no one else knows
its triumph.
