Caretaker

With our late spring here in Minnesota, it'll be awhile before we get to the point of visiting the garden to pick the vegetables, but I couldn't resist sharing this little poetic gem from Rachel Barenblatt today anyway, in anticipation:

CARETAKER (BEHAR)
Six days you may visit

to pick sugar snap peas

to burnish your fingers

with basil and dill

to strip string beans

from their leggy bushes

and choose radishes

to stash in your bag.

But on the seventh

let the land rest:

the chattering chickens

and drowsy sunflowers

the garlic hanging

fragrant in the rafters

even the earthworms

ineffable, underground.

Keep them in trust

and let them keep you.

--Rachel Barenblatt (The Velveteen Rabbi)

Blogging here. Wonder-fully.

You can listen to Rachel reading this poem at her site as well. It's from the week's Torah portion. I took the photo through stained glass with a window screen behind it, in the chapel at Sarah's...an Oasis for Women. Sarah's is a ministry of our province which provides a welcoming space for women looking for housing, community and safety.

Also glad to see that Jammie Thomas may get a new trial. See the story here. I wonder how long it will take the record companies to make the transition into the new age of collaborative creation that the web enables. Kudos to Jammie for not backing down.