Growing

Grant giggles in the garden
As he grabs the hose and sprays
But the peas get no more water
Than his shorts, his shirt, my face

Then we’re back to pick more berries
As the sun sears noon-day high
But all too soon dad’s motorbike
Roars in for our goodbye

We spent the morning watering
Between the times we picked
While taking pictures, stalking rats
And poking bugs with sticks

The purple-spotted beans poked
In cool soil two months ago
Are taller now than he has grown
A crimson spray aglow

I think of forty years ago
In granny’s big back yard
Of dipping rhubarb in a cup
Brown sugar, packed in hard
I see the reds of raspberries
In cool dawning sun
Amid refreshing greenery
And spider-webs just spun

Today we dipped our strawberries
In sugar-sweetened cream
It’s barely June
There’s so much more
I’ll teach young Grant to dream

Grant hasn’t seen zucchini sprout
Bright yellow or dark green
He hasn’t watched an eggplant grow
To gain its purple sheen

Potatoes, blue-fleshed, grown in pots
Nor cukes along a vine
Grapes - or tomatoes – trellised tall
Pink, striped, or yellow kinds

I get to live my life anew
In wonders he’s not seen
This gift of sharing growth with Grant
Perched on a big ravine

Varietals so new to him
Like Mammoth Melting Peas
Or Lolla Rossa lettuces
With ruffled red-hued leaves
Pale mache, bright chard, or radishes
(French Breakfast, if you please)
Those purple-podded skinny beans
That snap to show bright green
The Saskatoons: our closest chance
At northern blueberries

The name I think he’ll like the most
I’ll save until we eat
(‘Cause vegetables, from what I’ve learned
Turn Grant right off his feed)
The kale Collette calls “Dinosaur”
With crinkly blue-tinged leaves
Should spark imagination more
Than sheet-mulch, straw, or bees

I feel I’ve stretched my soul sky-high
As Grant rolls my wheel-barrow
Between garage and garden plots
While generations narrow

From a new book: poems and an essay called
Mothers' Garden -
raves, rhymes, rants and arrays -
on growing food in the middle of a big city,
on nurturing self and earth.

Launched March 2008. $15-

Poem and photos (c) copyright 2008,
Kyla Z. A. Dixon-Muir, Toronto Canada;

All rights reserved.

contact: cgwebsite (at) sympatico (dot) ca
to order Mothers' Garden,
or receive permission to reprint this poem.
(sorry, address spelled out for anti-spam purposes)