Planting

Image by Kate Ter Haar, via Flickr Commons

Bringing the dirt to his face,
my father smells it. “This is good soil,”
Blessed are You,

and we plant the garden, and
my father tells me he dreamed

while in the hospital
of his garden, dreamed of it

all winter, and he made a vow,
a vow he’d plant again this year,
King of the universe, and

he tells me when planting seeds
stay in the middle of the row,

don’t go too far to the left or too far to the right,
and each morning he goes to his garden,
who gives us life,

tends his plants the way he tends
his children, whispers “Grow,”

urges them to wrap their tendrils
around the fence, hang on,
and we water the plants, listen
to water as it drips, falls from leaf to leaf,

to the soil, and my father tells me
some days he can almost see the vegetables

growing in the sunlight, and I tell him
sometimes I can too,
sustains us and brings us to this time

and before eating the vegetables we make
the blessing for tasting food the first time in its season.

Republished from How to Spot One of Us (Clal, 2007).

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