In the garden
I bury the remains of the mothers -
The fish whose bones line the roots of my tomatoes-
That is how I pray
I kneel in the soft earth and look
Through the lattice of dark green leaves
There, yellow as buttercups in the sun,
Incipient fruit
Await the annunciation
I can already sense the bulging clusters
I take my well-sharpened scissors
And make space for the new life
Carefully pruning away the excess
To leave the essential
Isn’t it so with life?
I did an experiment once
I let the tomatoes grow wild
Leaves and suckers,
Fruit and flowers
In a profligate jungle
It was a beautiful mess
But I didn’t get many tomatoes
Life needs us to tend it
To feed and to prune
To discern what hinders
And what allows growth
It is a science and an art
that must be practiced each year anew
You cannot take it for granted
Each plant needs to be seen for itself
Not just a tomato plant
But this one
With the stem leaning this way or that
And my job is to sculpt it so its natural way
Can produce the most tomatoes
Not only for me and my table
But for the sheer joy of the plant itself
"This is how I grow best".
Me too!
