The garden this morning (II)

"You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth." — Psalm 104:14

Two weeks ago the garden was all promise and no proof. This morning there is proof.

The beans have come up properly, a row of green that is straighter than I remember planting it, which means either I was straighter than I thought or the beans have forgiven me and lined themselves up out of politeness. The tomatoes have new growth at the top, that pale green that means the plant has decided this is where it lives now and it is going to do something about it. The squash, which I had given up for dead beneath the mulch, has surfaced with two enormous leaves that look like they belong to a different, more ambitious garden.

I stood out there with my coffee and I did not talk to the plants this morning. I did not need to. They are doing what they were going to do whether I talked to them or not, and there is something restful about a garden that has stopped needing your worry.

The herbs by the kitchen door have settled in. The basil is up and the rosemary looks like rosemary instead of looking startled, and there is a volunteer tomato growing out of the compost pile that I did not plant and do not intend to discourage. Volunteers are the garden's way of telling you it knows what it is doing.

Junebug came out while I was standing there and sat at the edge of the garden and watched a cardinal in the dogwood. She did not chase it. She watched it the way she watches everything, which is with total attention and no intention of doing anything about it. I find her restful company.

The daylilies along the fence are starting. Orange, the old-fashioned kind that grow whether you tend them or not. By next week the roses will be open. The garden is doing what June does, which is arrive all at once and make you wonder why you were worried.

Lord, let the growing be.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.