In My Father’s Garden

He stands amid a sea of green bending to set a transplant as if bowing in homage digging its new home just so not too shallow not too deep. He is a small, quick man but here in the garden he is a colossus moving slowly among his people always dependent on him always eager to please. He is the coach he was in his youth exhorting each member of his team patting them on the back praising them encouraging their performance. His garden is a religion the Old Farmer’s Almanac his Bible To everything here there is a season potatoes planted on St. Patrick’s Day corn knee high by the Fourth of July. And the seasons drift with the wind until they can fly no farther and the season comes in which he cannot plant his garden and he is gone. Now I stand amid my wildflowers their colors the palette of a master artist bowing to care for them and I feel those seasons fly and am at peace.