There is lemon cake

They’re not my words. The words come from the spouts and sprigs in my garden. They are rooted deeply in the warm brown earth, waiting quietly, pulsing impatiently. They have always been there and will always be, witness to clamorous striving and calamitous fear. They know the collective unkindness of human beings but they have also seen the steady hand of a gardener. They know the soothing power of cool, clear water and they understand that things take time. They know my heart is a fool, weary but still hopeful so they stay with me when the light grows dim and the only sound is the scratch of my favorite blue pen in a notebook fat with poetry and a reminder to pick up the really good olives. 

The words wait for me to find them and then graciously step toward me as if accepting an invitation to Sunday picnic replete with fried chicken and cold salad. As if they know there is lemon cake. 

They urge me take more time to think and remind me that my pen and my heart are inextricably tied to the melons not yet budding to the left of the rosemary bush, to the rattlesnake pole beans stretching their necks up the homemade trellis which flashes silver in the sun. Yesterday, when I cupped those two blackberries carefully in the palm of my hand and then swallowed them slowly, I was self-medicating against selfishness, stupidity, and stubbornness. I need so much more practice. And now I am holding wisdom inside of my body and I know that it is right to let it flow down my left arm, the one with the rose bush scratch, crooking around the elbow bend to spill like seeds onto my clean white table. ​