Maybe sunflowers

Last year I was content to observe what grew in the yard.  I barely had my hands in the dirt, at all.  

Last year I also observed other plans completely change before my eyes.  It occurred to me to ask: Why plan?  Why plan anything at all?  What is that expression:  God laughs when we make plans?  Still, I realize a corner has been turned when I start planning again.  Of course I never stopped, really.  I may not have been driving around town, but I have learned and re-learned things standing and sitting, watching and waiting, even walking the unplowed sidewalks in the weeks after that February snowstorm.  Spring seemed late this year.  Maybe it is not too late to consider heirloom seeds.

It is late to order seeds

From the heirloom catalogue.

Past mid-May,

I look for the possibility

Of fast growth,

To catch up

Where I would have been

If I had planted before now.

It is late to consider seeds.

Seeds that have seen years and years

Of possibility

Flowers and fruit.

There are flats of annuals

At the garden store

Alas

Annuals have trends

Like everything else.

The nicotiana which drew the sphinx moth

Years ago

Is no longer in style.

Even perennials

Come and go.

It is late to drool over seeds

From the heirloom catalogue.

I consider them anyway.

Tomatoes are obviously

for next year,

The particular heirloom cucumber,

Seeds collected from pickle makers

In Germany.

The varieties of lettuce hold possibility

This year.

Sunflowers hold a page of their own.

I see sunflowers in a row

along the fence.

It is late but I think

Maybe lettuce,

Maybe sunflowers.