no longer small girls
in dainty sundresses
showing off our new white sandals
running from bees
in our parent’s yard
amid Sweet Williams and peonies
creating mud cakes
with metal watering cans
dirt and shovels
taking turns pushing one another
in Dad’s wheelbarrow
knees sticking up
and heads back to catch
the dazzle of sunlight

now in mid-life
in our cut-off jeans
we toil together in the heat
returning to the garden ritual

sisters still sifting through
the toll of recent tragedies
seeking hands-on nurture
we reach into the mix
water, earth, sunlight
in our aim to fill
her country landscape
with new promise of bloom

her call out or nod
tells me how I can help
as we fill and carry
plastic watering cans
lug bags of earth
and bring over, in pairs
the twenty white styrofoam flats
from the market

push spades, pat soil
tuck in roots
admire the colors and the mixes
she’s chosen, as
my newly-widowed sister and I revert
to old talk
of annuals versus perennials
orthodox and unorthodox methods
but then, of the ways she and Jack always liked to...

I head off to gather water
from front yard tap against the house
it spritzes me and the multitude of
mosquitoes of that corner
who ravish my bare legs

I hang the green bucket under the faucet
and soon listen to the echo of rising liquid
in plastic

moisture, earth, conversation
carrying memories of
easier days

I find her again
smudges of earth on her face
a black fly on her head
but she does not quit
except to switch over to catch up
on more strips
with the mower
the horse in the field and the lazing cats
her sole fellow inhabitants now
turn their heads at their own whim
to watch us,
while we imagine the presence
human and animal, of those who used to
share her homestead

neither of us as agile
of knees, lungs, backs, as we were
I carry less at once
make more trips
back and forth

our words across the heavy air
deal with more than
the growth of flowers at hand
but some strange sense of recluse
and restoration hosts our effort -
offers something of control in the hands-on

flats to transplant
plastic swans to overflow with pansies
brown planters to trim the deck
with pink begonias

in the simple actions of
counting, dividing
arranging colours and species
adding and patting down earth
pulling out stray weeds
we sift through soil to find solace

sisters in the sun
going on, together

06/08/2005