DAISY DAISY ~

The other day we bicycled every street and byway and side alley and short cut between towns in two side by side western Massachusetts towns and then over its noted bridge of flowers and came to daisy





photo : bob arnold

EARTH ~

HANDS




He was the first

One ever to show

Me anything, and

Make sense, about

A garden. When he

Called me down into

The fenced half-acre

I walked through the

Wire gate and found

Him shoulder high

In the early morning

Blossom of peas.

And snapping a pod

Open, with the same

Hands that cut timber,

Mended fence and

Milked cows — who

Came in here every

Morning before he

Went off to chores —

He put everything

Into my hands

When he said,

Now taste this.



___________________

from Where Rivers Meet
by Bob Arnold
Mad River Press (1990)





photo © susan arnold