Thistle

Jesus taught in parables, seemingly simple stories, with odd juxtapositions of images:  a good Samaritan, a woman sweeping her house to find a lost coin and spending more than the coin*s worth on a party, a mustard seed growing into a tree which will provide space for all the birds of the air... a mustard bush big as a house...some bush!  Jesus says to his disciples:    Do you understand?  They answer Yes.   Really?  Really?  Do they really understand?

Last summer a thistle grew

Next to the rhubarb.

In the near-demolished box

Of the vegetable bed,

A thistle took root.

I watered it.

Pretty soon I wondered

How big it would grow.

I remembered eventually

It would have purple flowers,

Then thistle seed for goldfinches.

It crowned at six feet

The thorns

The flowers

The seeds.

The goldfinches came

As I watched,

Swooped delighted in and out.

This Sunday Jesus asks us to consider

The mustard seed

The eventual mustard bush,

The birds that may visit

Even nest there

If we water it.