Patience

Fallow days find me watching Monty Don,
his busy hands digging, pulling, planting –
and dreams of zucchini (corgettes!),squash,
and chili’s dance in my head. Every vegetable
and flower that might grow in my hot, humid
climate gets a notation in my notebook while
I find myself thinking in British-eze.

But in my life patience has been a hooded figure
on a path far ahead, no matter how I try I
can not walk in step with her.
This is not good for an aspiring gardener.
Daily, I check the bare dirt for first green shoots,
then watch obsessively for second sets of leaves
while protecting them over and over from Spring’s
stormy weather. Only the Morning Glories can take
care of themselves.

Significant growth is taking forever as little plants
want to snuggle in Mother Earth, that hooded figure
feels farther and farther away. But Monty says,
“The story of a garden is always the story of a person.”
I want my story to be that I nurtured green things so
I will catch up to that hooded figure,
I will walk by her side. I will practice patience.

*

Prompt via The Wombwell Rainbow featuring art by Kerfe Roig, Jane Cornwall, and John Law.

Photo is of a few of my baby plants. 🙂

HAPPY EARTH DAY! 🌴