Gardeners’ Labors Rewarded
(or, on our twenty-first anniversary,
I almost forgot to write you a poem)
We have entered the season of neglect,
the long quietness. Last year, our twentieth,
was momentous, full of signs and portents.
This year I must remember to reflect,
steal time from children, work, and recent home,
from garden, new and relatively bare,
to celebrate our twenty-first. Years of care
and work, dogged persistence, which some
counseled against, when we were new and raw.
Raw like this yard: bulbs erupting one by one,
blind labor of last autumn, brave, but so alone.
The lush and rampant vision that I saw
is years from fully bearing. But you and I,
grow rich with fruit, and harvest-time is nigh.
*****
for Kevin, who makes me happy.