Gardeners
they come into the old hardware store
aged backs bent forward at the shoulders
tottering feet shuffling on the cement floor
“hello there!! how are you today?”
they say far too loudly
they’ve already explained that today
they’ll need 5 tomato, 2 squash, and
2 watermelon plants before anybody
can tell them how they are today
.
they gather up their adolescent plants
and head back to their homes
probably a small, brick, ranch house
somewhere way out in the sticks
no air conditioning turned on yet
because they get so cold so easily
.
they may let the plants sit until tomorrow
soaking them or just letting them rest
inside to avoid the heavy winds that set in
a few days ago and won’t seem to move on
not long after sunrise, they’ll be out there
in their small tilled-up garden spot
carefully preparing the holes for the plants
covering, watering, fertilizing
.
the weeks of tending, weeding, nurturing
is it about the vegetables or fruit
or is it one last chance to raise something
to care for it, to give it life, to see it mature
when the season ends for these plants the old men
vow “if I’m living next year I probably
won’t plant so many tomatoes.”
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Posted on February 25, 2016, in Poetry, Uncategorized and tagged DoubleU, Gardeners, John White, Poetry. Bookmark the permalink. 70 Comments.
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John, this really is one for my heart. It is about raising something, nurturing and caring.
Thank you.
Thank you, JoHanna! 🙂 That’s a great process and it can be really rewarding.
Awww, this reminds me of a good friend. Thanks for sharing! (With a slight revision, you’ve got a haiku.) 🙂
Thank you, Casey! 🙂 I might try to revise it into a haiku stack. I wasn’t paying attention to that when I wrote it but it could be interesting to try.
🙂
Sounds like my parents in their twilight years, the only dirrerence being they lived far out in the country (where I was raised) and grew a humongous garden. Good memories. 🙂
Thank you, Mary! 🙂 Gardening is a great hobby or past time for those in their twilight years. My dad still tries his hand at tomatoes and a few others each year and he’s 88 now.
Good for him. I think growing things give some a purpose in life, and we all need that.
It sure does and food that he grew tastes better. 😉
I grew up on a farm/ranch, and no store-bought vegetables come close to homegrown. Yummy. 🙂
Love this one!
Thank you, Karen! 🙂 It’s great to meet you!
Love this.
Thank you! 🙂 It’s a pleasure to meet you!
I love this poem. My grandmother was a poet who published a great deal of her work in a Mid-western farm magazine called “The Capers Weekly”. It was filled with poems and short stories about simple, country life, and gardening was a favorite subject. Some of these poems were published as a collection, including some by my grandmother, in a book called Heart Songs. A favorite line from one of those poems is “There’s no cure for winter paunches, Like getting down on gardening haunches.” Tending the earth, gardening is central to basic human purpose and an activity so good for our health. It very well may be the reason your old man gardener lived to be an old man. A very nice poem to read on this February morning when this old woman is dreaming of spring and my beloved garden.
Thank you! 🙂 My dad has gardened his whole life and still attempts a small garden patch even at 88. It sounds like he and your grandmother have much in common.
Yes, my grandmother very much loved her garden and some of her garden lives on in mine.:0) I also, have much in common with your dad.
It’s great to learn from your grandmother and to continue to raise a garden. I suppose one day I may do that same after learning so much from my dad.
If you choose to do so, you will be blessed.:0)
Absolutely! It will be a great way to continue to feel connected to him. 🙂
And to nature which connects us all.:0)
That’s for sure!
this is lovely.
“‘Neither need you tell me,’ said Candide, ‘that we must take care of our garden.’”
Thank you! 🙂 The garden gets pampered and is often what gets them through the season. It’s great to meet you!
Farmers – people who care for the weather as much as they do for their plants.:)
Thank you! 🙂 Absolutely and they keep close tabs on both. It’s a pleasure to meet you!
Earthy, lovely 🙂
Thank you! 🙂
Beautiful, reminds me of my grandparents.
Thank you, Doug! 🙂 There is something about the last generation and their connection to gardening. I hope the art of growing isn’t lost over the years.
Touching.
Thank you! 🙂
“…or is it one last chance to raise something
to care for it, to give it life, to see it mature…”
I wonder if they feel sad when they think of the possibility they won’t be able to see the little things grow.
Thank you, Therese! 🙂 I’m sure that’s a thought or at least enough to make them feel sad that they won’t see it and it might be part of the attraction to growing something each year – seeing it grow and mature.
You described me fairly well, John. My garden is a very important part of my life as the years have their way with my physical attributes. All of us make a variation of your last line, “if I’m living next year I probably won’t plant so many….” The planning for the next season helps all of us make it through the present one….:)
Thank you! 🙂 Having the garden, planting it, tending it, harvesting, canning…all of it is not only a great way to spend time but it’s productive and fantastic therapy. My dad has done that for years. This year may not work out since he’s becoming more feeble but I can hope for his sake that he can at least have a few tomato plants.
Thank you, as well. We have what I think is a rather cute saying here where I live, “‘tater, maters, greens and beans are what makes a garden.” For my self I feel the need for a few cayenne or serrano to compliment the other vegetables. My best wishes to your father’s gardening efforts this year…:)
There’s just no substitute for taters and maters! 😉 It can be great to try something new on occasion too just to see if it can be grown if nothing else.
Something new is great! I’m trying some cross-pollinated watermelons again this year and if they run true as they did last year I’m going to try and get a patent on the seeds. Wish me luck…:)
Oh yes! Best of luck. If you mange to create the perfect seedless watermelon I might be sneaking into your garden in the middle of the night. 😉
Thank you. Funny thing about my garden; some of the seeds that sprout late at night resemble 12 gauge birdshot…:)
Hmm…Were those seeds ordered from Smith & Wesson? 😉
1100 Winchester Semi….:)
I hear those are some excellent seeds. 😉
Yeah, they will often pop up and spread all over the place….:)
Very well observed. Many layered – simply told. Well done. Sally
Thank you, Sally! 🙂 It’s great to meet you!
Now that sure is quite a ‘Cause’ 🙂
Thank you! 🙂
Love this post. We can’t plant outdoors just yet because we live in snow country. We look through catalogs of beautiful seed photos which hold promise for this year’s garden.
Thank you, Mary! 🙂 Already dreaming of what can be planted…sounds like my dad who loves his garden. 😉 It’s a pleasure to meet you!
My pleasure, John. Thanks for the visit as well. We had an unusual day with temperatures in the mid 60s. We’ll have one foot of snow on Wed. It’s that time of year in Upstate NY. Happy gardening to you.
All the gardeners this time of year are stuck indoors but their minds are already wandering out the door and into their garden patches. 😉 Here’s to a short winter.
Highly unlikely in our neck of the woods. We had a March blizzard in ’93.
If it doesn’t end for you soon, there will be a mad dash in April, no doubt. 😉
We can’t really plant things until May and sometimes late May. Yes, it makes for a short growing season. I leave the collards in when the snow is here. They are quite tasty after the first frost and snow doesn’t harm them either. Our bulbs have pushed up out of the ground and will soon be covered again by snow. When do you start with your garden?
We generally will start planning what we’ll have by mid to late March and some early planting can start in April. That can be a hard to grow if the March winds extend into April. Usually, tomatoes are one of the first things we plant.
I recall the days in Virginia when I planted my garden Feb. 1 and still had tomatoes and peppers on Dec. 1. Not the case in Upstate NY. Good luck and happy gardening to you.
It’s nice to have an extended garden season and a big rush to get started as soon as possible when the season is short.
And green tomatoes placed in brown bags to ripen or cook as green tomatoes. Some of the herbs are hardy and last the winter.
John, I really loved reading this. My daddy passed down the joy of working the dirt, and it is ingrained in my spirit. I can’t wait to get my fingers in it!! (PS I think it’s pretty cool that you have all ages of readers!)
Thank you! 🙂 I’ve learned a lot from my dad as well and I will probably wind up working the soil one day on my own. Of course, now I’m helping him when I can especially with running the bill tiller. It’s good to be out there with him and then watching everything grow and mature.
Absolutely! I’m amazed at the ages of my readers and how diverse the group is. I’m thankful daily to see such a wide range of people coming by. 🙂
I love this 🙂
Thank you, Morgan! 🙂
As a gardener I can relate to this and have already been out in my gardens…
Thank you, Louisa! 🙂 Sounds like you’ve been lucky enough to have good gardening weather already. 😉
great write.
Thank you! 🙂
I love the simple storytelling that surprises you with sweet truth in the last bite. 🙂
Thank you, Courtney! 🙂 It’s great to meet you!