In honor of Master Gardener, Louise Peacock, whose day starts before the sun.
Sweat runs in crooked rivulets
Down sun-warmed skin —
I stoop for another handful of
Pesky weeds that won’t let go.
My spring-planted bush now overcome
By a jungle of what is not wanted;
My purchased plants grow slow
While strangling vines and root-hardy weeds
Reproduce like bacteria,
Scurrying across grass, shimmying up stems
In a matter of hours, or minutes.
The first shudder of thunder
Is felt more than heard —
It pounds against my chest
Like defibrillator cups;
A blousy wind, reckless and unkempt,
Musses my hair, cools my cheeks, and
Blows detached weeds further from my reach;
A cloud the color of angry
Glowers from the east
Warning that weeding time is done,
Run, woman, run.
My back howls as I straighten,
Reminding me I’m too old for gardening
And other things I don’t want to do anyway —
The sweat joins the wind, disappearing in the west,
An ant scampers across my shoe
Followed by another, as bad as the weeds
That plague the tiny patch of land
I designed for beauty
Under the laughing gaze of nature.
The first drop hits my back as I
Bend for disobedient and disconnected weeds,
Not willing to be shoved in the yard bag,
Crowded with branches broken
From sultry, summer storms,
Fierce in arrivals, timid in farewells,
And now another gathers like
Buzzards on a tire-crushed squirrel.
The bag drags across the grass,
Resisting my need to leave it for disposal —
It’s the weeds inside, I know,
They are reaching for the ground
To take hold once more —
But I win this battle —
My victory lap is straight but quick,
Dancing between raindrops the size of
Tea cup saucers for field mice.
A day in the garden ends,
The weeds lost — today —
But tomorrow, the war resumes,
One weedy battle at a time.
