I Write Poems Sometimes.

I write poems sometimes. Usually in the winter and after some major life event. Pregnancy, birth and parenting have been excellent muses- along with my mother’s cancer, tensions with my husband, and trips to Brazil. When the summer arrives I turn the soil and rip out the ever-persistent Bermuda grass. Keyboards and scraps of paper for poetic flashes get shuffled down the priority list. Garden bolts to the top. This funk keeps me from doing much of anything- and keeps me inside complaining about it in this forum. Poems are bubbling inside.

Before the funk, I gardened like mad. And the garden does look smashing- a wonderful place to sit and watch Stella play. The day my grandfather died, we were featured on a “green” gardening tour. Our garden is tolerant of the Northern California summer droughts and winter rains, is free of pesticides and fertilizers, and has clover instead of grass for the lawn. We have a Trex deck. We ripped up concrete and built walkways and raised beds, used years of broken plates for a mural on a retaining wall. Having lived here only 5 years- and being novice gardeners- the plantings still have room to grow, and the aesthetic is definitely “home grown.” But I am truly pleased.

Perhaps I can work through my loss with some off-season poems, celebrate life with the veggie beds, and move back to my big dog self. In summer camp one of the counselors said I was like a ball- I always bounced back quickly from whatever problem. I hope her assessment holds true today.