David Budbill - A Long and Gracious Fall

We've enjoyed David Budbill's poetry before on this blog.  Here's another.  This poem was on the Writer's Almanac last Sunday, Veterans Day.  To hear the incomparable Garrison Keillor read the poem aloud, go here.

A Long and Gracious Fall

by David Budbill

A long and gracious fall this year.

The leaves are down. Gardens: emptied,

manured, tilled, smooth, and waiting.

Mower and tiller serviced and put away.

Smoker put away, as is the summer table.

Prayer flags, windsocks and their poles: down.

Twenty-foot homemade badminton poles,

peace flag at the top of one, store-bought net—

all down and put away for another year. No more

outdoor summer chores.

Fall planting — peonies and tiger lilies — done.

Summer flower stalks removed, beds mulched,

a blanket for the cold. Fall pruning done.

Woodshed roof hammered down and sealed again.

Cellar closed. Drive staked and flagged so the

snowplow knows where to go.

What else is there to do? Finally, for once, we are ready

for the snow. Ready now to come inside. Time now for

words and music, poems and shakuhachi. Time now

to light some incense, sit and stare at candlelight.

"A Long and Gracious Fall" by David Budbill, from Happy Life. © Copper Canyon Press, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

A shakuhachi is a traditional Japanese bamboo end-blown flute.  For a sample, John Kaizan Neptune playing Tsuru no Sugomori (The Nesting of Cranes), click here.

Seventy-Two is Not Thirty-Five

at the Zaner Garden

This poem is reprinted with the kind permission of the author, poet David Budbill, a passionate vegetable gardener for the past 40 years.  It's dedicated to the Through Our Garden Gates hosts and the many volunteers who made Saturday's tour a huge success!

Seventy-Two is Not Thirty-Five

I spent seven hours yesterday at my daughter's house

helping her expand their garden by at least ten times.

We dug up sod by the shovelful, shook off the dirt as

best we could; sod into the wheelbarrow and off to the

pile at the edge of the yard. Then all that over and over

again. Five hours total work-time, with time out for lunch

and supper. By the time I got home I knew all too well

that seventy-two is not thirty-five; I could barely move.

I got to quit earlier than Nadine. She told me I'd done

enough and that I should go get a beer and lie down on

the chaise lounge and cheer her on, which is what I did.

All this made me remember my father forty years ago

helping me with my garden. My father's dead now, and

has been dead for many years, which is how I'll be one

of these days too. And then Nadine will help her child,

who is not yet here, with her garden. Old Nadine, aching

and sore, will be in my empty shoes, cheering on her own.

So it goes. The wheel turns, generation after generation,

around and around. We ride for a little while, get off and

somebody else gets on. Over and over, again and again.

David Budbill

18 May 2012

Find out more about David and his writing at http://www.davidbudbill.com/ or find him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DavidBudbill