Their Lonely Betters

Getting my hands in the dirt: My garden had grown run down. Years of leaf mulch made it acidic. A construction job some years ago damaged a corner of it, and the rocks of its walls made digging and planting the edge a bit rough. I have plans for a small patio and a better fire pit, and so I signaled to those concerned a desire to recondition it over this summer, and decided to not plant this year...

And then I was gifted a plant. A single yellow tomato plant. A gift from a friend who has offered care and food when I was hungry. The gift-plant needed a home indeed. A pot would have done perhaps, but it would not grow enough to yield the many tomatoes that my soups and pastas desire. So it was the incentive for me to put my hands in the dirt.

Here is a picture of a new garden that has already drawn in two beautiful swallowtail butterflies. And then I offer a lovely poem from one of my favorite poets (whom I learned about from Morrie Schwartz)...

Their Lonely Betters

As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.
A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.

Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.

Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.

--W.H.Auden