In the heat of summer, my garden overwhelms. I know I should bask in its ferocious needs, center my gratitude for its productivity and not dwell on my inability to finish the mulching, staking, egg-smooshing, weeding, beetle-picking, side-dressing, pinching, harvesting, processing or succession planting that’s always overdue. Alas. Year in and out, the balance I long for only arrives when fall does. In September, I can let go and get still. In October, I can embrace the messiness of the season just past. In November, I see change all around me and feel, at last, a part of it. One of the many records of this favorite transition is in my haiku notebook, where fall poems abound.
***
I replace their rock
but the startled crickets
have lost all faith in it
***
autumn concessions:
the smaller harvest basket
and a thin sweater
***
wheeling plant debris
to the back of the garden—
wild geese overhead
***
covering the greens
with an old bed sheet— the cold
has hushed the crickets
***
basking in the heat
of October’s feeble sun—
me and this old bee
photo credit: Thomas Millot, Unsplash
Farmer-ish 