round about now

everything changed here in the garden a few weeks ago when the third apprentice, jessica,

threw down her water bottle and tendered her resignation in the heat of a friday afternoon.

we went on weeding the carrot patch, but her two hands were missing and we felt it as

we combed through the rows like slow, wet, manatees. 

simultaneously, two other gardeners left, as they had planned to, and over the course of

a few hours, we lost three helpers, six hands, sixty fingers to pull up the many weeds and

harvest the many summer squash and basil buds we have about our garden.  we did not

panic, but the garden sucked in its stomach collectively and we've grown tighter and

closer since then. 

the garden is comprised of many inhales and exhales. the main breath is sebastian,

our head gardener-farmer and lael, his wife, who conducts and plays the garden-oboe.

jacob and i now fill in the air about them as apprentices. the four of

us have slightly different pulses and therefore beat separately, often independently.

 in any given moment i may be leading in the goats, lael, watering the seedlings, sebastian, setting out irrigation, and jacob, spreading compost over recently tilled fields. in another flash,

lael will be digging beds for thyme, jacob spraying a preparation over the fields, i will

be weeding for tomorrow's harvest, and sebastian will be cultivating the sweet potatoes.

sometimes, we will all breathe together, while planting strawberries or sorting carrots.

sometimes, i'll look up and be alone in the peppers. sometimes, i'll be surrounded by 20

people, all pulling up pigweed from the raspberries, like birds about low tide shores,

bustling, shifting.

i work in a biodynamic garden. we view our land as an organism. it breathes as we breathe.

it's comprised of organs with their own sensitivity. it's not silly. it's sacred and science.

therefore, the metaphor of blood and oxygen works. how else would anything grow?

the summer is reaching its high point. sebastian said so over beers at the sly fox post work

last wednesday. i drank and wiped my wet mouth with the back of my hand. the sun was at an angle that i had to shade my eyes to see him, and even then, the small hairs about his jaw line shone individually golden and straight. 

at the height of the season, we must sustain ourselves. how do we do so? 

we inhale, then exhale. 

july has another two weeks, then comes the creature august, in an altogether different

colored coat. almost everything is planted in the garden and there is new help. 

carrie from washington dc has come for a week. anna, for longer. a new apprentice

arrives from germany at the end of august. 

the toads work too, eating up insects at night. 

at dusk, we free ourselves from the breath of the fields and come inside, bearing marigolds

and cherry tomatoes.

sometimes, i bring home these little weeds with these little flowers and photograph them

on my desktop fabric of blue, pink and white.

i think of the letter A and drink milk before i sleep at night.