Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Posted on by Live & Learn

True gardeners cannot bear a glove
Between the sure touch and the tender root,
Must let their hands grow knotted as they move
With a rough sensitivity about
Under the earth, between the rock and shoot,
Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.
And so I watched my mother’s hands grow scarred,
She who could heal the wounded plant or friend
With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love;
I minded once to see her beauty gnarled,
But now her truth is given me to live,
As I learn for myself we must be hard
To move among the tender with an open hand,
And to stay sensitive up to the end
Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.

— May Sarton, “An Observation” in “A Private Mythology: Poems.” (W.W. Norton & Co. in 1996)

Notes: Poem via Exhaled-Spirals. Photo via Pexels by Karolina Grabowska.

29 thoughts on “Monday Morning Wake-Up Call”

  1. This is such a superb observation! I shall translate that for my son who is a landscape gardener AND a fervent lover of all things nature, who is mindful of the smallest life so often overseen and neglected. He will greatly enjoy reading this. Thank you Dave.

  3. Doing any loving act with the bare hands feels so much more immediate than working with gloves. The hands and arms lead right to the heart! There’s something so satisfying when the hands feel whe weeds to be removed and the new seeds or plants to be laid into the soil. Thank you May Sarton…and David…

  4. Thank you for this.  It will take a week of Mondays to savor this one.  

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  6. And this reminded me of something i read yesterday and hit home,

    “When she made things grow, she experienced a kind of manifest forgiveness, an abiding moving-on and making-new that she found impossible in almost every other sphere of life. Even in her failures and mistakes—as when she learned that onion seeds don’t tend to keep, or that low soil temperatures result in carrots that are pale, or that fennel inhibits growth in other plants and should be propagated only on its own—she never felt chastised, for truth, in a garden, did not take the form of rectitude, and right was not the opposite of wrong. To learn even something as simple as to water the roots of a plant rather than its leaves was not to be dealt the harsh reality of cold hard fact, but rather to be let into a secret. In a garden, expertise was personal and anecdotal—it was allegorical—it was ancient—it had been handed down; one felt that gardeners across the generations were united in a kind of guild, and that every counsel had the quality of wisdom, gentle, patient, and holistic—and yet unwavering, for there was no quarrelling with the laws and tendencies of nature, no room for judgment, no dispute: the proof lay only in the plants themselves, and in the soil, and in the air, and in the harvest.”

    — Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood

  9. Yes, I know the feeling of the soil on my hands. It’s good. Just have to make sure to really scrub my hands when I go back in the house to knead bread dough. 😉

  10. May Sarton is a quiet riot of wisdom and peace, and I love this musing of hers that you put up. I’m so glad it found your eyes and heart, DK, and that you knew to put it here. 🤗 Are you a gardener?

  11. so beautiful, in words, and photograph,… Thank you dear David, have a nice day, Love, nia

  13. I like May Sarton’s writings…Agree, the gardener’s love for getting dirt between the fingers and under the finger nails.. The gardener in your photo is planting, celery…today when out in the garden, dear hubby planted some celery seedlings, that had been growing from seed, in one of the two small green house (plastic) metal shelves covered in plastic -the other greenhouse your can stand up in… He also planted my yearly geraniums mixed with bicopa & some other trailing plants to enjoy over many months to come & fuchsia’s baskets hang on the outer edge of the fascia board of the eaves – these baskets attract the humming bird all late spring, summer and fall – they always come and check for an errant bloom in December and January…there never are as it is too cold…last night we had a frost it was 30 degrees (this was after all danger of frost has passed) dear hubby had made sure to close up the big greenhouse & the 2 shelves of 5 each cover in plastic and he had need to cover other tender items with cloth…

    1. “The Gardener in your photo is planting celery.” You never cease to amaze me Christie re: your memory and powers of observation. As to your garden, are you out helping “Hubby”?

  14. This past summer, I bought a hardback book by May Sarton, at an Estate sale…I saw the name May Sarton and I remembered how much I’ve enjoyed her poems after being introduced to her, through your shares…Thanks for the Joy! God bless you & your family, Kindly, Christie

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