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GARDEN TALK

Gardens speak of Paradise,
of freedom,
of being yourself

Gardens say,
Slow down,
Look around you,
Believe,
Hope,
Blow away those cranky thoughts

Gardens talk—
If you are willing to listen,
And remain quiet only—
Awed by the greatness
of the music of your soul.

Zoraida Rivera

THE GARDEN

THE GARDEN IS RICH WITH DIVERSITY

The garden is rich with diversity
With plants of a hundred families
In the space between the trees
With all the colours and fragrances.
Basil, mint and lavender,
God keep my remembrance pure,
Raspberry, apple, rose,
God fill my heart with love,
Dill, anise, tansy,
Holy winds blow in me.
Rhododendron, zinnia,
May my prayer be beautiful
May my remembrance O God
be as incense to thee
In the sacred grove of eternity
As I smell and remember
The ancient forests of earth.

Chinook Psalter

THE GARDEN

AFFAIR IN A GARDEN

Beneath the overgrown grass swells the rich brown body
of the Earth. I want to throw myself down on it,
embrace it. I want to hug the trees, their high
summer lushness a green temptation.
Wildflowers appear, planted years ago,
flirtatiously blooming now as if they had
all the time in the world to grow
so beautiful and, of course, they do.
This is why as I bask in August sun
in the garden with perfumed breeze
stroking my bare legs and arms and face,
I am totally in love, wanting only to be
one with this pulsing planet.

Arlene Gay Levine

THE GARDEN

GARDENS

Gardens are more than
hooded flowers, tempting fruits
and living trees.
They are the birds
that sing and fly in them,
the wing-eyed butterflies,
the golden bees.
They include the sky
with sun and moon and stars,
the rain and snow;
they are the earth
with captured light from heaven
where plants and people grow.
A garden is a universe
that whispers soft and vernal,
“As it is above, so it is below.”

Waking, blooming, sleeping,
waking up again,
gardens are eternal:
they teach us all we need to know.

Thelma Palmer

THE GARDENER
THE GARDENER

Kneeling as if in prayer, the gardener commits an act of worship, her hands running through the clumps of earth. Like so many rosary or mala beads, the dirt slips through her fingers as she chants her garden mantra: “May I help to plant the seeds of delight, nourish and water this patch of land with love, weed out discontent and witness its miraculous growth, knowing that I am the co-creator of beauty.”

Rev. Edie Weinstein-Moser

THE GARDENER
BLESS THE GARDENER WHO

believes great things grow
from small beginnings

appreciates sunshine and rain
and the rhythm of the seasons

plows through troubles
willing to get hands and knees dirty

remains grounded
but keeps an eye on the sky

plants extra for birds to eat their fill
and never leaves us hungry

Mary Kolada Scott

THE GARDENER

A GARDENER’S PRAYER

When I rise
let me plant
the sweet silence
of my garden as a seed
inside me, blooming
hour by hour, chasing away
the weeds of the day
until I retire
and the sweet silence
sings my soul to sleep
once again.

Arlene G. Levine

GARDENING

GROUND

For any number of ills
that assail the human heart,
loneliness, worry, gall,
boredom, anguish, greed—
touch dirt every day.

For whatever ails,
touch dirt every day.
Grab it in great handfuls.
Knead moistened clumps of clay.
Sift sand like streaming velvet.

Be cooled; be calmed.
Feel comfort in its smudge.
For whatever ails
and is grievous to your heart,
touch dirt every day.

Maryanne Hannan

THE SEASONS

JANUARY THAW

False spring.
The sun, thinned
to a white radiance,
warms the bones,
pulses the thermometer up over sixty.
Crocuses push their tips
through the newly softened earth.
Too soon, we say,
and want to make them
retrieve their leaves,
refurl them back.
Shrink, before the snow returns,
or you won’t live to dazzle us with your watered silks of purple, white, gold.
We haven’t had a proper winter yet,
the ground still brown,
no real accumulations.
But in this fickle weather,
we warm, too,
turn our faces upward
to the light,
shed our coats, gloves, scarves.
Sheets of ice begin to fall away.
And suddenly, our skin is alive again.
Shyly, small flowers open in our hearts.

Barbara Crooker

THE SEASONS
SPRING PLEDGE

I pledge allegiance to the flag,
graceful sword-leaved iris,
boldly veined with down curved sepals.
I pledge allegiance to wild hyacinth
with keeled leaves, six pointed stars.
I pledge pickerel weed
whose blue spires edge pond and stream.
I pledge blue and purple,
the united states of spring.
And to the republic of painted trillium
whose crimson blazes
at the base of white petals.
One meadow, one woodland
under God, indivisible
with violet and larkspur for all!

Shirley S. Stevens

PLANTING AND HARVESTING

TURNING THE GARDEN OVER,

the hoe churns up black surf.
Starlings whirl and wheel overhead,
seagulls in reverse.
Hear the ocean singing,
again, again,
turn it under, make shore.
The wind billows at my back
as I move like a plover
pecking the dirt.
The shovel gives: slick, slice.
Pick out a chunk of granite,
hold it to your ear,
you can almost smell the sea.

Barbara Crooker

FLOWERS

PERENNIALS

An early summer day,
fragrant as a ripe peach,
and we go out to look at the perennial gardens:
the scented phlox, the variegated bachelor’s buttons:
cerise, wind, cream, solids and stripes.
And the carnations, their silver-blue foliage,
hot pink flowers, sweet perfume.
And the coral bells that pick up the pink,
play it one note deeper, ring in the wind.
They pass to the iris: Wine & Roses, lilac & lace ruffles,
a dash of orange in their beards
that’s echoed in the Oriental poppies,
paper thin, dancing in the hot reel of the air.
And that loud note of orange
is what makes us last through ice storms,
two foot drifts, nights of twenty below,
turn to longer days, survive.

Barbara Crooker

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

VEGETABLE LOVE

Feel a tomato, heft its weight in your palm,
think of buttocks, breasts, this plump pulp.
And carrots, fresh dirt clinging to the root,
gold mined from the earth’s tight purse.
And asparagus, that push their heads
through earth, rise to meet the returning sun,
and zucchini, green torpedoes
lurking in the Sargasso depths
of their raspy stalks and scratchy leaves.
And peppers, thick walls of cool jade,
a green hush. Secret caves. Sanctuary.
And beets, the dark blood of the earth.
And all the lettuces: bibb, flame, oak leaf,
buttercrunch, black seeded Simpson, chicory, cos.
Elizabethan ruffs, crisp verbiage.
And spinach, the dark green
of northern forests, savoied, ruffled,
hidden folds and clefts.
And basil, sweet basil, nuzzled
by fumbling bees drunk on the sun.
And cucumbers, crisp, cool white ice in the heart of August, month of fire.
And peas in their delicate slippers,
little green boats, a string of beads,
repeating, repeating.
And sunflowers, nodding at night,
then rising to shout hallelujah! at noon.

All over the garden, the whisper of leaves
passing secrets, gossip, making assignations.
All of the vegetables bask in the sun,
languorous as lizards.

Quick, before the frost puts out
their green light, praise these vegetables,
earth’s voluptuaries,
praise what comes from the earth.

Barbara Crooker

ALL CREATURES

BLESSINGS

The red butterflies
pause like blossoms
on the grass;
a yellow sunset
turns them bronze.
I am counting
pairs of red wings.
The late light
lies prayer-like,
slant and serene,
and I know
blessings
have lives of their own,
are surprising, can
suddenly
settle, or
fly away.

Barbara Van Noord