“It’s too hot to work but I have an edge to put in, so I push beyond what’s comfortable, knowing that I’ve done it before. The metal tool, so well crafted, so well used, cuts deftly, dividing the lawn from an area of ornamental flowers. This place where muscle meets art, & grass submits to the heavy hand of the gardener, is, for a day, or a week, or a season, not un-similar to a performance. The harvest of a sweltering day. I love my work. I always make it play. There are machines, and rides in the hot summer sun. There is exertion, and there is rest. The waft of breezes, the pummeling heat and respite of water. I could not be happier, toiling in the palm, and the lay of the land. Worrying about how wet my clothes will be, due to dew or rain, or how I will have to kick off my shoes, to leave less impact, on newly tilled soil. Being pricked by thorns, of raspberry or rose, & navigating what’s left of my gloves, mostly full of holes, and worn. I pray to worms, and try to save them, while ravaging their homes. Sometimes its frogs, appearing from nowhere, out of truckloads of bark mulch, or after a savage thrust, of my shovel. Out of silence, the swooping raven, catbirds and jays. Punctuating the time I’ve lost, and been lost in. Calling me to look up, while relieving me of guilt. What we think is time travel, is simpler, no simpler, than this. Being pulled out of a frame, where we’ve placed our fretful consciousness, out of habit. In the underbelly of an artic willow, noting ligularia seeded over the months I’ve been occupied elsewhere, here marks the true passage of what remans unstoppable. Those who kept growing, dividing, encroaching, celebrating life, while we were head down. It’s a much more complex system, than we can sum up, in articles about permaculture or any hip gardening blog. And why, perhaps, the simple stories, the “secret gardens” that we disappeared into as children, are more relevant and sacred. I don’t forget what captivated me, in my earliest moments of guileless confusion. Those gods walking humble paths of walled perfection, those shambling, elderly misfits who no one paid any mind, who did not attract but lived to be forgotten, by example; I guess I’ll reside among them. Not known for much more than having committed miracles, that were quickly washed away. Maybe famous for taking good care of a shovel, or for having trained a wisteria vine up a wooden post. The ones who cared about exactly where the garden started and where it ended. Who were annoyed, by the way joe pye weed took advantage of a ditch. Who spent emotional energy on how the push mower was impeded by fallen apples, on the path. And waited for the primrose to go to seed, instead of hacking it down prematurely. Who suffered greatly due to the incursion of sedges, & woodchuck tunnels in retaining walls, and goutweed, and moss. I’ve had my share of hard knocks. I deal with it primarily, at ground level, now. I can work almost everything out, without raising my voice, or lashing out. The most important thing is friendship. And how lucky we will be during this shape-shifting apocalypse, to accomplish even one, deeply held friend.”
