In the canvas bag where I stored garden hand-tools,
in a side pocket covered by a blue-black-white

paisley bandana, I kept a small brass pipe and a palm-size
stash of homegrown I’d grown here at home years ago excellent really quite primo

kept moist by rotating wedges of apple newly
I’d partake every now and then

when out in the green house at the potting bench (no pun intended)
the aroma of earth, water, and oxygen processing

in filtered sunlight
and sometimes in moonlight

wondrous dahlias and grapes on grafted rootstock
made tougher to live here, to be able to endure here

propagating boxwood and ficus and fig
helping them to get through the erratic germination of exotic types

in the end just hoping
we’d all find simpler things

© Chagall 2014