PAD Day 8 - Tool *

 My Mother’s  Garden Knife

Blessed is she who weeds her mother’s gardens

And every garden that I've had was somehow hers.

Even this one, so unlike her Pennsylvania stone walls

 Enclosing rhubarb, rhododendron, and strawberries,

Roses, foxgloves, peonies, and mint.

She taught me everything I know about a garden,

How to plant, and how to weed

Garden knife in hand, long days’ Summer hours

On her knees beside the old red barn,

Her cats for companions in the catnip,

In the buzzing herb beds conversing with the bees.

Through years of pain and loss, depression,

In the herbs and flowers she knew joy.

Here in this dry and stony desert garden,

Her steel blade in my hand,

She gently whispers green thumbed lessons

Instructs me “Listen,

From the pines the doves are calling,

The redbud’s in full bloom.

Take comfort in the iris,

Take comfort where you can.”