Earth Day was this week, and my sister helped my father plant a flower in a pot for his room at the nursing home.
When my father was young he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps program, planting trees in northern Minnesota. I have a picture of him from then, lean and handsome, standing on the shores of a lake. He said he liked the CCC camp because they fed him all he wanted to eat three times a day.
They feed him three times a day at the nursing home, too.
Martin Van Dorn
Gardener
Under the window, on a dusty ledge,
He peers among the spider webs for seed.
He wonders, groping, if the spiders spun
Beneath that window after all. Perhaps
His eyes are spiders, and new veils are dropped
Each winter and summer morning in the brain.
He sees but silken-dimly, though the ends
Of his white fingers feel more things than are.
More delicate webs, and sundry bags of seed.
That flicker at the window is a wren.
She taps the pane with a neat tail, and scolds.
He knows her there, and hears her – far away,
As if an insect sang in a tree. Whereat
The shelf he fumbles on is distant, too,
And his bent arm is longer than an arm.
Something between his fingers brings him back:
An envelope that rustles, and he reads:
“The coreopsis.” He does not delay.
Down from the rafter where they always hang
He shoulders rake and hoe and shuffles out.
The sun is warm and thick upon the path,
But he goes lightly, under a broad straw
None knows the age of. They are watching him
From upper windows as his slippered feet
Avoid the aster and nasturtium beds
Where he is not allowed to meddle. His preserve
Is further, and no stranger touches it.
Yesterday he was planting larkspur there.
He works the ground and hoes the larkspur out,
Pressing the coreopsis gently in.
With as old hose he plays a quavering stream,
Then shuffles back with the tools and goes to supper.
Over his bowl of mil, wherein he breaks
Five brittle crackers, drifts the question: “Uncle,
What have you planted for the summer coming?”
“Why – hollyhocks,” he murmurs, and they smile.
