Fleeting
We waited all winter for signs of life
skunk cabbage poking through the muck
the eastern phoebe's song
the red maple's crimson cloud.
The early garden morphs
from bare ground and fallen leaves
to rosy bleeding hearts and creeping phlox,
golden ragwort’s golden glow
and Jacob's ladders'
soft blues.
We wait so long for what is too soon over.
Ephemeral beauty beckons.
Gifted by what we cannot control,
is this not grace?
Ann Bodling is a gardener and spiritual director and writer who readily experiences God’s sacred presence in the land and its plants and creatures. She lives in the eastern United States with her husband, three goats, seven hens and the many wild ones who come to the two acres she is restoring for them.
Amethyst Review 