Garden poems for your pocket

I'm a sucker for Days. Record Store Day, ESL Awareness Day, and Teacher Appreciation Day are just a few that I have recently observed, though I admit that a few of those are self-serving. Last year, while I was teaching a unit on poetry (to prove my previous sentence), I became aware of the Poem in Your Pocket Day, on April 30. The idea behind this observance, a final bow to National Poetry Month, is that in order to appreciate this literary medium, one copies (or writes) a meaningful poem and carries it around in his or her pocket, to pull out and read to friends, family, co-workers, and anyone else with the courtesy to listen.

The hardest aspect of this day, at least for me, is to choose one poem to have the honor to share space with my keys, spare change, and lint. This year, with the blog in mind, my choice addresses a gardening theme. I have decided to go with "The Garden Gate" (see below), though a little web research has dug up a few contenders, including:

"Guests" by Celia Thaxter--she captures the sensory essence of gardening, not just through her poetry, but through other written reflections about her own experiences tending an amazing garden on an island off the coast of Maine. More from her in future posts...

"They'll spend the summer" by Joshua Beckman--a sweet little haiku leaving the reader wondering who "they" are. My guess is that they are people like you and me and the garden alleviates our stress.

"The Glory of the Garden" by Rudyard Kipling--a decent garden takes hard work. Though I object to the poet's suggestion that only men carry out these duties, I'll acknowledge just a little that he was a product of his time.

"My Garden" by Emily Dickinson--though vulnerable, the garden will always be a place for birth.

If anyone out there has another notable poem within this theme, please share it. "The Garden Gate," written in February by Joe Bergin and Terry McAweeney, is a thoughtful tribute to the Minton Stable Garden and the people who have made it a special place. Joe has read the poem twice, at the Sounds of the Garden benefit and the Gardeners Gathering, but to our knowledge, it has not had its Internet debut, until now:

The Garden Gate

You get up early in spring in the morning

The riotous birds are mating high handsome and wide

The early light has beamed through your bedroom window

You trip down the steps to the great outside

Crocuses at your foot, the promise of a daffodil

The breeze doesn't bite, and the garden gate defrosted

is in a stone's throw sight

and in your bones you feel the old thrill

You've studied the January seed catalogues

You've sent for the heirloom strains

You've consulted the Farmer's Almanac

You've prayed for a sunny May and a tapering off of April rains

It's a short march to the garden

A shovel and hoe in hand

to turn the soil, put your back into toil

and your time and energy to sweeten the land

On your walk down the radius gravel path

you pause by the 3 granite monuments to the man

and give a thought to old John Carroll

and think to yourself

just how this glorious garden began

It was back in 1993

after they tore down the ancient horse barn

John, who'd seen much death in Vietnam

looked across the overgrown vacant city lot

and in a vision saw a neighborhood flower and vegetable farm

And you know he knew that was the old horse trail

where pleasure riders into Franklin Park would prance

and his mind must've reeled at the sheer infinitude of biomass

of all the equine road apple gifts

that down through the years

became the rich land grant of nitrogen to our plants

Now, onward, you open the wooden and iron ball and chain gate

and proceed to your 10' by 10' plot

The sun is kissing the back of your neck

and you feel sweetly high as if you've just had a large chocolat

Turn the soil, add compost, look for earthworms

Level the land, sow the seeds, hum a song

Thank Mother Earth, say a prayer to your little garden

May miraculous germination

please not take very long

Say, there's your beloved neighbor!

You converse as you're down on all fours

You delight in airy conversation

as they till their soil on their plot down from yours

It's a model for communities everywhere

It makes a hamlet of our corner of Jamaica Plain

Where you work side by side with fellow gardeners

growing crops in the sun and the rain

So it is, come summer, down on Williams Street

Home from work, ask a neighbor how their day has gone

and you can tell it's been a hard one

...but they smile and say

"I'll see you in the garden, later on..."