-for Sue, my sister gardener
	at University Houses

Long ago when our husbands traveled
we double-dug raised beds, a project 
requiring twenty person-hours, planted 
close and neighborly species to yield 
kohlrabi bigger than our fists, cauliflowers 
bigger than our heads, broccoli branching 
all season long, ragged lines of hair-thin leeks
swelling to sweet fat stalks, weeding out nettle, 
Velvet Leaf, and thistle for the compost pile—
      
I used the spading fork I’d given my spouse
for his birthday and we listened to the emeritus dean
advise on watering tomatoes, not to splash the leaves,
and The Moosewood Cookbook guided us 
to seasoning vegetarian soup with dill and fennel 
and garlic in the cook's own loopy handwriting,
and we planted marigolds to discourage pests—
somewhere along the way I was divorced
and kept the spading fork, and it was the garden

that sustained me; every fall harvest of potatoes 
required a soup-making party, scrubbing, 
peeling, chopping. Friends multiplied.
I found a sweet new man, a fellow gardener;
my children grew to men. I learned to bake.
Today my sons and I exchange tomato photos,
recipes for pickled vegetables, leek soup.
And you, friend, praise works of art, raise
a sculptured back yard of flower beds.
                        

In our garden they grow tall and prolific,
gift that our friend Gretel grew from seeds
she’s saved across the years—bright red globes
too large to be Sweet One Hundreds, too small to be 
Celebrities, open-pollinated descendants of ones
grown by Alan Chadwick, original guru 
of Biodynamic French Intensive gardening,
at the college where Gretel gardened with him
so long ago— non-patented, non-hybrid, 
bred by our local bees in that open-hearted 
gift economy we practice with the share shelf.
                        

for Will

					I consider again
a flat of native prairie plants—little bluestem,
turkey-foot, blazing star—although the only space
is filled with tree roots.  Still, much thrives—
branching brown-eyed Susans, goldenrod,
coneflowers and bergamot feed the bumblebees
after April bows to our hope for a host of daffodils—
and wild indigo towers over the purple winter-creeper
now frankly growing straight up to launch itself
across the driveway to new territory.
								We live
in the Eden of polar vortex, summer heat; our snakes
but narrow fellows in the grass; our squadrons are 
flights of sparrows, cardinals perched in brilliant reds,
nuthatch and chickadee darting in and out the flocks
of purple grackles and red-winged blackbirds led
by our blue-jay family to the feeder; and on the ground,
mourning doves and juncos scratch at seed spills, explode
to the yews and phlox under the shadow of the hawk.
Each morning you bring me coffee, fill the feeders,
promising this late-life love.