All the grace

On a Sunday morning before the sun was too high and quite by accident I found myself working in the front garden bed. I was on my way to do something else. Whatever that was lost to the morning sun and my overgrown front garden bed.

The front garden bed is a round one. Surrounded by stones and the occasional yucca plant. When we moved into this house this garden bed had been so full of lovely flowers and plants that I didn’t know the names of. Those are all long gone. I was determined back then to make the place my own. I regret that decision now. 

In the Spring I pulled up everything, replanting what I could elsewhere. I layed down fresh manure and earth and filled the space with seedlings of all sorts. Lovingly cultivated in my sunroom, with water and sun and hope then replanted in the garden beds. For a time they grew until a hail storm crushed them.

But with time little bits of green emerged and the pumpkins teased my hopeful heart. Then came the scarlet runner beans. In the back beds Auntie’s jalapenos made a miraculous comeback along with some tomatoes and green peppers. Now in the warm morning light I tug at the clingy crabgrass in the front bed, still wearing my pajamas.The pumpkin are doing what I’d imagined they would. They are stretching out everywhere with so many vines.

With the sweat running down my brow and with my hands in the earth I feel so much peace. I smile at what looks like returning sedum and the not so surprising purslane. Since it wasn’t my plan to come and work in the garden beds, I dont have my bucket to collect what I pull. So I stack my fist full of crabgrass in front of the stone buddha frog that stands guard here like some sort of strange offerning.