Friday, May 05, 2006

Furrowed


I'm tired. I'm so tired, I'm numb. Nothing sounds interesting. Everything's a chore.

But I'm planting the garden anyway. The seeds rustle dryly out of their envelopes and disappear into the soil, invisible in their dirt camoflage (how do the birds find them?). It looks pretty pitiful, really. Nothing but rock-hard pellets and broken earth. An apt reflection of the gardener: prostrate, broken, leafless.

But I'm planting the garden anyway. Under the furrowed dust, I am longing for a taste of those vivid tomatoes that only come out of one's own backyard. I believe there will be a salad that is as much a feast for the eye as for the palate - violets, nasturtiums and pale pansies crowded between the spinach and cranberries. The pungent basil will be worth its weight in gold, and the bees will use it to flavor our honey with a minty perfume. I am counting on roasting chilis this fall, and being able to put up quarts and quarts of salsa, paprikas sauce and green chili.

I am counting on renewal. On resurrection.

7 comments:

prairie girl said...

Kim,

My dad was a gardener, a rabid one. For as long as I could remember, he lived in the garden and during the winter months a stack of gardening books and seed catalogs sat by his favorite chair.

After his stroke, he would toddle out to the garden, pull up a plastic chair, and hoe with one hand. He would often just sit along the garden and daydream of more productive days. My oldest boys, who were about 10 and 12 at the time, put in the garden that summer, under his watchful eye, following his every instruction! Somehow, just planting that year gave him a special hope for his own future.

Tnaks for sharing this nice post.

Kim Anderson said...

My mother always said a garden was a healing place...

Ann Voskamp @Holy Experience said...

Your words were healing...
Thank you.
Ann V.

Carol said...

How come my gardening isn't nearly as poetic as yours. Mine's just all about...I dunno. Plants and dirt and mulch and weeds. Yours is all about feasts and stuff.

Mayhap I be overly concrete.

Anonymous said...

God has given me knew energy and is renewing my heart on a day-to-day basis.
I have been burned out, no energy. It has been a long road, but through His Word I am getting there.
I hope that your garden will turn out great. We are in the process of planting basil - nothing better on fresh tomatoes than basil.
((((hugs))))

Anonymous said...

Your words are as delicious as your pesto. Prayers until the resurrection. Renee

Kim Anderson said...

Thank you for your kind words! There are more tunnels to my salt mine than I realized. I am missing you all and this writing release.

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