Blooming And Being

Full days:  finals and summer's early arrival, a garden planted, and a farm and a mother and a daughter responding to the sun's invitation.

Mulched and watered and staked:  growing a new pin oak to replace the one that fell the first year we lived here.

A hamster cradled.

A dress ironed.

Sun tea and pansies and a door that invites us in then sets us free again.

And I remember, too:  whole days spent charming the garden hose like a snake handler.

Usually the peonies bloom around Memorial Day, and, at that time, they're covered in ants (pesky fellows--try chalk and cloves).  If you cut a few for the house, you inevitably invite the whole armada indoors.  This year they bloomed so early the ants were too late.  

The seeds are in.  Holy.  Yes.  Very.

The Good Friday potatoes and onions are up.  The broccoli transplants are thriving (I knew they would!) and the spinach and dill have announced themselves along with a few volunteer tomatoes.  Let them grow.  

And all the while above the garden, this spins the wind and the invisible.

The yellow roses (right) have bloomed.  When I walk by this bush, I am immediately at the ranch on Silt Mesa smelling Grandma Smith's row of yellow roses.  

And the view is as deep as the day is long, and as I finish up the final grading for the school year, I begin to understand how much I need this room to stare and sit and let every detail of this suddenly abundant story settle into my bones.

And everywhere around the house, Ila's peonies are blooming and being:  something I'd like to practice with some help from Love.