The Woman in The Garden

The woman in the garden was known all around — 

Unmistakable by the stark-whiteness of her crown. 

 

And those tie-dye overalls, in which she fittered about,

Could be seen from three-blocks-and-a-half ways-out. 

 

Each day of the fall,

the summer, the spring —

Herself to her garden was a tree to a fig. 

 

Tending fervently to her flowers,

To her fruits, 

and her birds.

 

And, by extension, to her bees,

her rabbits, 

and worms.

 

She felt what they felt —

Their fruition was hers.

For, what happened to them, responsibility fell sure. 

 

The blooms that didn’t bloom,

The sprouts that didn’t sprout,

Were, to her, equivalent to never walking about. 

 

To not sleeping her sleeps, 

Not dreaming her dreams —

Why, it was like everything fell apart at the seams. 

 

But the blooms that did bloom, 

And the sprouts that came out —

Well, you’d think someone shoved a coat-hanger in her mouth! 

 

And when winter did come, 

As it so begrudgingly does,

Her restlessness spiked to one-hundred-and-one. 

​

To take care of a thing —

To watch it become —

This is a job that is meant for the sun. 

 

The light, with which everything else is concerned —

Indebted-to forever, and ever, for sure. 

 

a.t.

 

To My Mother — The Sun