A poem: Planting Time

Planting time

By Patrick Stevens

I see

flowers in spring:

white, yellow, violet, pink

all lined up in rows and plots

popping here and there

potted or not,

placed by neighbors’ hands

and mine,

tended and growing,

as if our children

were lined up for

inspection,

bright and cheery,

bow ties and curtsies,

bursting with life.

This sunny

May season’s

spring days each

always a new surprise

or a memory

as flowers rise

to greet

another year

on summer’s way.

I have scrubbed and scoured

an acre of soil

off my creased hands

from pulling weeds,

from turn tilling the soil,

roughing it up

Raking, hoeing,

smoothing the beds,

most of the years

of my life.

It’s a lesson ’most learned:

to suffer small

discomforts

for these millions of blooms.

Enough in my one life

to make the sun blush,

as I dug the dirt

and cleaned my nails

at sun set

most days.

as I await June.

The author is a

Cloquet native who

recently published his

first book of poems,

“Panning Gold,”

available at the Pine

Knot News office.

He will be at the

Cloquet Public Library 6-7 p.m. May 9.