The garden this morning (VI)

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these." — Matthew 6:28-29

The cherry tomatoes have come in and I ate three of them standing in the garden this morning with the dew still on them and they were warm from the vine and tasted like every July I have ever lived through, which is all of them.

The big tomatoes are still green but they are not the hard green they were last week. There is a softening. A yielding. My mother told me the garden would tell me when it was ready and the garden is beginning to clear its throat.

I watered everything before seven because by eight the heat is a wall and by nine you do not want to be outside unless you have to be. The beans are still producing. The zucchini has slowed down, which I did not think was possible, but there are two more on the counter and Edna said she would take them if I brought them by, which I will.

The hummingbirds are at the feeder, the same two that have been coming since June, and they do not pay me any mind when I am in the garden which means I have been there long enough to become part of the landscape, which is the nicest thing a garden can do for a person.

Lord, let me be part of the landscape.

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