Great Expectations

The yearning for green things, growing things,
fruits and flowers, begins in the deep and dark of winter.
Savvy garden magazines know this, tease and taunt
in gorgeous, full color photo spreads, the perfection
I can expect for our yard if I buy, buy, buy.

I fall for it, eagerly await the arrival of tender sprigs,
bare woody roots, and naked seeds to gently space,
immerse, water, and watch. Into the early summer
they flourish, growth and weight added, springing
height upwards, buds beginning to take shape.

Summer in the desert tells its own stark truth, stalks
becoming sere and dry, flowers reaching early seed,
vegetables requiring emergency shelter to survive.
The flagstones become covered with creeping, patchy
thorns, the only true green that of the sprawling weeds.

They force their way through the minutest of cracks, but
I will continue to dream the winter dream, insanely hoping
for different results, hoping for the green of spring, only
to awaken to summer’s reality: the brutally shoving, grasping,
desert weeds, cracking man-made containers we hope to fill.

Tracy Plath