The Winter Garden

Snow drapes over the mountain like the finest of lace:

Tiny stitches into snowflakes of water and ice.

The storm has passed. The sun shines bright.

A rumbling truck plow breaks through the deep white,

Causing the country road to shine quite slick

Beside the little house of stone, glass and brick, 

Where the black iron stove is lit

And packed with crackling firewood, long since split.

High on the papered living room walls,

Shelves hold picture books and mystery novels,

Cookbooks, histories, dictionaries,

Pretty catalogues about birds and trees, 

Animal tracks, gardening, poetry

And maps of forest trails for exploring.

At the upright piano, Pop sits,

Pressing pedals and keys into quiet music:

Sweet, like the smell from the kitchen stove

Where Momma chops kale and red potatoes,

And sings to the baby sleeping in her belly,

While glancing at a tattered old recipe.

At the long farmhouse kitchen table,

Six-year-old, Hadley sits, so sad and dull.

“ Oh Momma, when will winter be over?

I miss the sunshine, berries and flowers.”

“It’s awhile away. Go make what you miss.”

Momma says, leaning in for a forehead kiss.

Hadley closes her eyes and pretends that she is barefoot in the garden dirt. Removes her long sleeved shirt, unlaces her boots, peels off her socks and imagines torn-up, tangled roots and muddy gray rocks. She pictures pulling weeds and planting seeds, unfurling a blanket and picnicking on cheese, bread and strawberries. She runs to the field where the breeze blows through the summer trees and tickles her naked sunburned knees. And there on the path, she sees, the flower patch with the pretty pale pink peonies for making posies! Then on her imagination goes……to the climbing vines of red tomatoes and the fragrant purple basils, the geraniums and the pointy thistles. She imagines her bathing suit pinned to the line, her black and brass bicycle, the lake, and drippy purple popsicles. She hears fireworks, tree frogs and coyote cries, sees bonfires and blinking fireflies.

Suddenly, she opens her gray speckled eyes.

Then off to her easel, she practically flies!

Hadley paints pale posies of peonies;

The blueberry bush; wild grass; pine trees.

She paints seedlings 

And feather wings, 

Shining stars, 

And insect jars, 

Green tangling vines

And warm yellow sunshine. 

Hadley paints and paints! 

Paints until she nearly faints!

Momma sits with her books and photographs,

Collecting data and drawing up graphs. 

She’s a botanist, a plant biologist, 

a professor and field scientist. 

She’s a social justice organizer,

a mom and a vegetable gardener.

Pop is a poet and a pianist.

 He’s a bee keeper and a tree arborist.

At the local elementary school, he teaches music,

English, history, art and mathematics.

He’s a dad, an animal lover,

A feminist and a book collector.

Today, he lays with his cellphone screen lit, 

Reading newspaper stories recently writ. 

Hours later, with an empty belly,

Hadley slices bread and smears it with jelly 

(The jam she and Pop made late last summer)

…And just like that, she starts to remember…

It was so hot then when Pop stood at the sink, his hand stained blue, holding a tall lemon drink. Blueberries boiled in a pot on the stove: hot fruit jam to fill jars with pretty handwritten labels. Hadley stood beside the blueberry buckets with her tongue, lips and fingers wet with blue violet. Now months later, back in the cold white winter...

Hadley prepares a cup of peppermint tea,

Turning the comb with wildflower honey.

She slathers her bread with blue jam and butter

Momma and Pop must have gone out without her! 

At the sink, she washes her dishes and sees, 

Out the window surrounded by snow and trees,

Are her sweet, precious parents, her family.  

Hadley puts the kettle back on for more tea. 

Hadley finds socks in her oak wood dresser,

Long johns and her softest sheep wool sweater. 

She wraps her scarf; ties the laces of her boots,

Puts on her knit hat and puffy snowsuit.

She buttons the buttons of her jacket;

Grabs mittens and the empty kindling basket.

Steam rises from the mugs like clouds in the wind.

When they see Hadley, her parents pause and grin. 

“Tea for you.” She says, holding out her tray.  

“Thank you! Ready for a little work and play?” 

Hadley gathers sticks from beneath spindly trees;

Fills the bird feeders with lots of little seeds;

She throws snowballs as far as she can;

Runs, tumbles, makes a fort and a silly snowman.

She sweeps the porch and brushes off the wood pile,

Shovels the garden path and wipes off the sundial.

Hadley coasts down the hill in her long, planked toboggan

Until the sun sinks behind their great pine forest mountain.

Sweaty and sleepy, Hadley lays in the snow,

Thinking about her day and the new thing she now knows: 

Even though it is late winter

And cold and windy and dark as ever,

Inside, she can be cozy, busy and happy 

And, if she wears her layers well and warmly,

The outside, too, is a delightful place to be.