I watch her in the garden

I sit on the deck, pretending to read,
but I'm really watching Bern in the yard,
working. Hours each day she bend, kneels, sits,
doing things I scarcely understand at all.
Sometimes I feel a tiny bit guilty:
her working so hard, me reading, watching
her work. But then I remember that I
could never do whatever she's doing.
So I watch--admiring all that she does
without understanding it, yet loving
how intense and focused she always is.
If I call to her it takes two, three calls
to rouse her from her attention to dirt,
plants, flowers, the implements she works with.

There is something almost spiritual
in her attention to the task at hand.

I envy her that: the zen of it all.

Those who are close to the rich fragrant earth
are closest of us all to deep-down Life.