Nature Of The Nature Boy; A Garden Gives Thanks

THE NATURE OF THE NATURE BOY

There I go

asking the permission of the tree again

lo flop under its leafy boughs.

Not too heavy on your exposed roots

am !?

Not too hard on the trunk'7

And then my gratitude starts punching

the juke-box buttons of the air:

cardinal, titmouse, chickadee,

all those warblers I can't tell one from the other,

and tanagers, especially the crimson kind,

and those powdery blue-birds.

Wild-flowers are also part of my pact.

I will sprawl a nostril's distance

from their sweetest blooms

but I will not pluck a soul.

And bees can buzz about all they wish.

My face wears its usual sign.

"I am not pollen."

Ah, breeze,

sorry if you must blow around me.

And grass, though day seems endless,

I've still not time to watch you grow

I express regret to light

as my eye-lids close,

and to consciousness

as I drift off into a sleep

that's courtesy of

but respectful to

my dear subconscious.

Eventually though,

it's dusk and I must go home.

The world turns

but not for my sake.

And I'm still prone to apology

so people will have to do.

A GARDEN GIVES THANKS

In the early days of October,

in the shadow of the house,

her hands dig in soil.

Each trowel stroke dishevels the ground,

opens many a space wide enough

to encourage the worms whose

secret labor prepares the way for April.

Emma’s wisdom is in the blood,

many generations borne by aching muscles,

a devotion to the modest beauty of a garden.

By dusk, her back may throb,

yet the earth already has its May speech prepared -

blossoms will emerge, they will offer her their thanks.

She layers cardboard, leaves, and straw –

a quilt of thanks laid gently over earth.

For every ending, she knows

that something is beginning.

It’s the old, the new,

and with gratitude as a bridge.