My Garden Waits

Guests are gone, the house suddenly quiet. Garden vegetables await preparation. July heat presses for twelve hours of daylight. I wait for morning or evening to go outside in sunscreen and a hat. Most mornings I rise too late, evenings too tired to work so I get out the sprinkler instead. I water black berry bushes heavy with fruit, apple trees in the home orchard, green beans, and flowers. Each half hour I move the sprinkler, last to the purple blooming hosta beside the barn. In grass past my ankles, I see a windfall stick and reach, noting late its strange black curve and gleaming heft, the diameter of my granddaughter’s arm. It moves and I screech, scaring the corn snake that slithers away. It stretches its length along the barn wall, longer then I’m tall. I move the sprinkler again, leave my garden friend, retreat inside where it’s cool. 

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Date Published: September 29, 2018