Little Piles
an ode to my late summer garden
Water drips off of an almost-ripe tomato, falling into soft dirt, dirt that has been neatly arranged into neat little piles throughout the bed. There are no nibbles on the leaves, the tomato plants have grown big and strong and fertile, and the marigolds are glowing even in their shade. All the other plants, though. . .
Who has made these little piles?
From the window, a squirrel freezes with walnuts stuffed into its cheeks. Crows glance up from beneath the walnut tree, where they meet daily for congress. A cat rustles through the overgrown grapes that drag and claw across the border of the yard. A bluejay buries a precious peanut under the rosemary. Juncos peck at the quinces. Beetles scatter from the squash, grasshoppers teem out of the dandelions, wasps drink the rotting flesh of forgotten fruit.
Grass wraps around toes, stiff and unyielding. And the soft dirt has been arranged into little piles.
The tomatoes stretch into their skin and drip out of it. The peas fill with water and shrivel. Flowers burst out of the lettuce and the herbs. The soft dirt is smoothed out and piled again.
Little Sweet watches the plants come and go. Her snout follows their roots out of the dirt, aches to taste the nutrients they’ve yielded to the bed. Her paws scramble to collect the fragrant rot and juicy worms, slow with gluttony. Little Sweet’s piles of dirt are messy and scattered, desperate and raw.
The piles of soft dirt absorb the morning light. They’re neat and small, carefully arranged around the lettuce and squash.
Acorn and walnut shells litter the grass, working their way back into the earth. There’s no nuts in the piles.
The squash leaves stay small and curled. Ants come and go, then the beetles, and flowers stretch out and die. When the piles begin, mold spreads across the leaves, fuzzy and white. A flower bears fruit. The dirt is smoothed. The squash fattens.
The piles arrange themselves like little miracles.