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Poetry From the Garden

3-5 minutes read

If you enjoy garden photography, I invite you to the companion post, Images From the Garden.

Earlier this year, I spent a lot of time gardening. It’s a small garden, and I started out of curiosity, to spend more time outside, to rest and ground. For a steady supply of fresh salads and herbs for the bunnies, and some veggies for myself.

For the joy of observation and cultivation. I am very much a beginner. Learning little by little by watching, working, and reading bits of advice whenever I have a spare moment.

It is incredible how much is going on in such a small, ordinary patch of land. I am starting to think that gardens contain all the wisdom of the world. I wonder if the magic of a garden lies in the balance between intentional cultivation and processes beyond our control.

Much like human life. Often, it is in the presence of the garden that I internalize some of the teachings, and it has sparked many of the poems that you might have come across on the website. Here, I have gathered them into one compilation, added some that haven’t been published yet, and edited one or two in new ways.

I hope you enjoy.

A simple sumi-e painting of a snail feeding on a lettuce seedling

Poem: garden watering
a wasp lands on a leaf
to sip a bit

Poem: hot summer evening
ripe cherries’ fragrance
in the warm rain

Poem: after the whole day
in front of a screen
picking tomatoes

Poem: flowering
in its illness
an apple tree

Poem: resting still
a rose-apple tree
and a Buddha

Poem: a spider in the snail shell—

when my time comes
may these bones too become
someone’s new home

Poem: reunions
sprouting grasses
falling leaves

Poem: a snail munching
on the salad seedling
enjoy the meal!