The garden is done

"He covers the heavens with clouds, prepares rain for the earth, makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the animals their food, and to the young ravens when they cry."* — Psalm 147:8-9

Henry came by this morning and I was already in the garden with the wheelbarrow.

I did not ask him to come. He did not say he was coming. He pulled up in the driveway at about nine o'clock and walked around the side of the house and stood at the gate with his hands in his jacket pockets and said, "I figured you'd be at it."

I said I was at it.

He came in through the gate and picked up the garden fork that was leaning against the fence and started pulling the spent tomato plants from the far row without asking which row I wanted done first, which tells you something about a man — that he looked at a garden and saw what needed doing and did not need to be told where to start.

We worked for about two hours. I pulled the bean poles and stacked them by the barn. He loaded the wheelbarrow three times with the dead vines and wheeled them to the compost. We did not talk much. There is a kind of work that does not need talking, and garden work in October is that kind — the ground is cool and the plants come up easy because they are done and the beds that were green two weeks ago are bare dirt now and that is not sad, it is just what October does.

The last marigolds went today. They were still blooming and I pulled them anyway because they were the only thing left and a garden with one bright thing in it and nothing else is lonelier than a garden with nothing.

When we were done I stood at the fence and looked at it. Six empty beds, stakes piled, mulch to go on next week. Henry stood beside me with the fork in his hand and looked at the same thing and did not say anything about it being done or being pretty while it lasted or any of the other things a person might say. He just stood there. Then he set the fork against the fence where he had found it and touched the brim of his cap and said he had to get to town.

I went inside and washed my hands and the kitchen smelled like cold dirt and coffee and I sat down at the table and did not cry, which I am reporting only because there was a year when I could not close the garden without crying because Earl was the one who closed it, and that year was a long time ago now.

Lord, the garden is done. Thank you for the hands that helped.