Thinking ahead

Today, I planted some 360 crocus bulbs and any of the grape hyacinths that hadn't gone moldy.

My vision is to have a little meadow of crocus blooms in my parking strip. More likely, the squirrels will come tonight and dig them all up, or they will be planted too shallow and won't survive.

At one point, I saw the chopped end of a daffodil shoot. What? I stopped jabbing my trowel into the damp ground and noticed that yes, the daffodils are already arriving even though it's December, even though winter doesn't start until tomorrow.

Whenever I work in the yard, or the garden—and it isn't nearly often enough—I think about Stanley Kunitz, who made time for both passions, planting and poetry. Sometimes when I garden, poems begin to grow in my thoughts. Today, I just got muddy, cold, wet hands. But, bulbs are in the ground.

Spring will tell its own stories.