Puttering
Feb 4 2024
You know the type.
The first warm day.
The heady smell
of freshly thawed soil.
Grass, coming back from the dead.
She has a trowel in her hand
a pad to kneel on.
The seeds she bought this winter,
after pouring over catalogues
of colourful plants
fantastic blooms
she's never been able to match
but keeps doggedly trying.
The garden almost fills
her modest backyard.
She will admire the flowers
while giving most of the produce away
to grateful neighbours,
the Sally Ann,
the hard-up food bank;
because it's either feast, or famine
when vegetables come all-at-once
and spoil too fast.
She battles bugs, weeds
arthritic knees.
Keeps tabs on the compost.
Shoos away the deer, raccoons
free-loading birds.
Like an artist
who makes art for its own sake
and feels she has no choice
her motives are pure.
Because it's all in the doing,
not the having
gotten it done.
She doesn't seek riches, approval, or bragging rights,
just beauty
growth
and joy in the moment.
She has a green thumb
but also puts in the work.
Takes pride
but humbly.
And all spring and summer
you know where to find her;
on her knees
hands in the soil
puttering away.
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