Gardening in the Rain

It started with a gentle tug
to trim a succulent from a jug
stuffed full with hardy hens and chicks
but tugs turned into pulls and picks
Until the pockets of my pants
and both my hands were full of plants.

By then, I was already soaked,
for as I pushed and pulled and poked,
the storm that had been gentle  drops,
turned into pelts and then to plops.
Since cool rain was a respite from
days of heat and glaring sun,

I loitered some along the way
to see what new additions lay
along the path that stretched between
the lower garden where I’d been
and the house far up above—
that toasty place—that cushy glove.

But then there was that empty pot
(whose jade plant we’d moved to the lot)
where there was dirt but plants were not
and all those cuttings I’d just got
stuffing my pockets, filling hands.
Can you see how the plot expands?

Thus it went that for an hour
I stood there in the soaking shower
restoring beauty to the pot 
where formerly beauty was not.
Then, dripping in my sopping clothes,
I used my sleeve to swipe my nose

and shed my clothes all at the door,
tracked wet prints across the floor,
hung up wet clothes and dried my skin,
then used the towel to wrap me in,
and meant to dress and have a meal,
but couldn’t help it, had to steal

to the window for one look more,
then opened up the sliding door,
and, one hand clasping tight the towel,
I headed out with garden trowel
to add if needs be one plant more
to the pot planted before.

I love gardening in the rain.
and see no reason to abstain.
With no sun to scorch my skin,
no reason to remain within.
And since I loved where i had been,
What I did once, I did again.

(Click on photos to enlarge and read captions to hear the rest of the story.)

Then I spotted those hen and chicks

and other overgrown pots of succulents.

but that didn’t stop my collecting,

It was then that I remembered the empty flower pot on the boulder near the pool.

Nearby was a large-leaf jade plant I’d been meaning to trim back

and a number of offshoots from a plant beside the sidewalk

And before I knew it, the empty planter was empty no more.

Four hours later, my blouse is almost dry.