Poem: February 9, 2019

Shovel and Gloves

My mother is a gardener and has been all of my life.
She tends to the plots and beds that surround her house;
she tends to her house, and every room in her house;
she tends to the people there, and the food
and the little details that people notice and set a mood.
My mother stoops and gathers for long hours,
prepares the ground, mists the leaves, adds, removes.

My mother's hands are as strong as youth, and you'd
think they must be to shape the world, to prune
the thick limbs that have grown too long, to work
into the soil and pull free the deep roots to impose
herself upon the wild spaces and shape them into gardens.

Gardens must be for my mother the places
that can be made to listen, to move, to be improved.
My mother gardens with a long view and the tools
of an artist. She layers and mixes the hues, and she
chooses the textures and elevations of features,
she juxtaposes colors, she minds shape and shade.
My mother pulls forward the potential view,
and she uses her fingertips to pinch away that which intrudes.

And everyone who knows my mother must conclude
that she seems to easily touch the world, to nudge
every milieu into place, to leave every room,
or meal, or porch, or nursery, more suitable, more true.
And they are quick to note how very much they admire
her sense of style, her eye for detail, the remarkable
artistry with which she arranges her home.
And, of course, she glows in her role as hostess.
She reaps with the same intensity as she sows.

What's not to admire about a woman who cares so much
to create the beautiful gardens we wander, and who
bends her back to work her will upon the world.
Who serves, who serves, who serves and owns the world.