Symbel-wynn Reflections

(Bandersnatcher Picture Prompt #3)

(Picture Credits: Christi picking beetles, Lore Pemberton ‘s Garden Scene, National Geographic March 1976)

I am a baby gard’ner
and I do not know a thing.
My mobile isn’t sugar plums,
It’s green beans on a string.

I’m just a baby gard’ner,
but I’d like to learn to crawl.
What I thought I knew from childhood, 
I found I didn’t know at all. 

Aware was I with trouble
of zucchini to re-home
and I was fairly certain
you should plant them on a dome.

My husband, he knew how to hoe
I hard-ly knew that trick
I was always there to weed, and there
were green beans I could pick

Both of us soon realized 
that we really had no clue
except, of course, when there was 
menial la-bor left to do

So we’re just baby gard’ners
with a picture in our heads
of some broad and leafy cabbages
and rich, black soil beds

Our first year yielded nothing
when from borrow’d land we found
there was maybe more to gard’ning
than seeds pushed into the ground

Next we learned that tra-vel-ing
a-way from our back door
a few blocks with our daughter
took our energy and more

So, we were baby gard’ners
who would take a little break
for a few years un-til we would
have our own back plot to stake

With eagerness of toddlers
we’d reach both hands for the hoe
so again we could dis-co-ver 
some more that we did not know

It was easier, indeed 
combining offspring with a yard
good to have a tiny gain 
when finding your new so-il hard

Except for gardens boxes 
where the composting was clear
we began to learn that tilling clay
made black dirt very dear

We learned the need for wat’ring
sometimes daily in the dry
sometimes seasons followed patterns
some-times it went awry 

Every year we gained a bit more
both in knowledge and in skill
There is nothing like a basketful 
and freezer we could fill

We were growing in abundance 
hailing veggies in their season
feeling less like baby gard’ners 
till the beetles all moved in

Sud-den-ly, we noticed 
many leaves were limp, green lace
Though leaving corn most-ly untouched 
aspar’gus ferns hung in disgrace

Everywhere we looked, we saw 
with sinking heart in chest
the iridescent ugliness 
devou’ring green-ness, east to west

We fought as best we’d learned 
with cups of soap and sprays of oil
but glancing ‘round saw, with such
ease, our greatest efforts foiled

With hanging heads, we cut out
what had once been full of health
We remembered well the years before 
so full of cherried wealth

This year we watch as all the world
seems to be turning beige
The sky is full of smoke
and the sun is hid in haze.

The leaves are rolling tightly 
in an effort to allay
against the dryness of the soil 
and the bearing of sun ray

Are we still just baby gard’ners
with so much of loss and sorrow
with a knowledge that a new thorn
or bug could come tomorrow?

Yes, we are baby gard’ners
but we’re learning as we go
We remember years of plenty
as we live our years of woe

And, we know now, more than ever
yes, we’ve learned to watch and wait
For rain falls on good and evil
In this, we will share our fate

I’m a baby gard’ner 
and I’m learning how to trust
that what I really think I know
does not amount to much

What grows us older is the 
knowledge that each year will bring
just a little more assurance that 
we hardly know a thing.