No. 47 - My Mother's Garden

In my mother’s garden,

The purple pries apart

The vein from leaf,

The bark from tree–

As branches make an arc

Over beds of planted plans

Each according to their season.

See with what care

She placed there

The peonies for daylight

And the geraniums for bright white

Contrast on the blackened mulch,

Allowing roots below to sulk

Protected from the heavy sun

Beating down on every one.

So too her ardor garders

Beauty made manifest, 

Gives a place the soul to rest:

Where the difference between a bud and a blossom 

May be an hour,

And there’s great joy 

In the smallest flower.

At last I come to see

How much these little plants,

Like me,

Were labored over–

Delighted in,

But how few know the hands

That made them them.