In Gardens
In gardens we fall
in love with what grows:
heirloom harvests of Brandywines and Ox Hearts,
Mortgage Lifters and Big Rainbows,
as if love itself were a green
tomato ripening on the windowsill
of its own momentum,
like dumb luck and not
what brings us to our knees
in rich soil, so that what we lift
from the vine and take inside us
is not only sweet firmness
but back ache and blemish, not just
fine juices but the threat of early frost.
Through thistle and sunlight,
blight year and bounty,
we carry on—this work
of life, this cultivating and caring,
putting up glass quarts of ripe Hearts
that will bear us through December
drifts and longest nights
like a dreamsong of summer.
It will feed us season after season
after ever-fruiting season—
this attention to what grows, this
dedication, this harvest, this labor of love.