A Garden Poem

I come early,
while the hush still drapes the trees,
and the birds sing their simple hallelujahs.

The soil is cool beneath my hands…
I press the seeds into their graves
believing,
though I cannot see,
that life stirs in secret places.

This is faith.

Each morning, I return.
The tender shoots rise,
green hands lifted toward a sun
they have never seen but somehow trust.

This is hope.

The weeds come too,
as they always do.
Their clever insistence
teaches me to guard what is good
and let go of what chokes.

This is discernment.

Sometimes I must cut back
what has grown wild…
the defiant vines with roots deep and wide,
And though my heart hesitates,
I prune.

This is surrender.

And then the days of fullness…
the ripening, the gathering,
the baskets brimming with fruit
that began as nothing
but small promises.

This is joy.

And when the season closes,
and the garden sleeps beneath its quilt of leaves,
I remember…
all things begin again
in silence, in darkness,
in the unseen hand of God.

~Jaki Good Miller