My Burgeoning Garden - New poem: The Pope Comes to Visit

So, my laptop is fixed BUT my upstairs computer, where I do my writing, is messed up. Probably the same virus that harmed my laptop.

We have our writing group in 45 minutes at the Giant. I have drunk enough coffee this morning - and delicious it is - to fill up a baby pool.

  Scott ground up the beans for me in his coffee grinder he uses for one thing: to crush up eggshells.

He makes a drink out of them for the calcium.

While I was waiting for Joseph to fix my laptop I went for a walk. Right next door was a bldg that used to be a bank. Now it's one of those Vapor places.

I helped myself to some sweet-smelling honeysuckle, which, years ago, strangled all my shrubs. I suffered from painful sciatica and couldn't garden.

There was also a pink hydrangea in full bloom. I plucked off a bloom on the bottom, leaving, of course, many other ripe blooms.

Dangling on the bottom are some willow tree leaves. So you see! There are indeed willow trees in Willow Grove. This tree was huge! No one knows it's there. So I paid it obeisance and told it "I care!"

Below, hard to see, but the pink Mandeville, a tropical plant, is doing very well. If you listen carefully, you can hear the Buddha chanting for its fecundity every single day!

 Crepe myrtle is doing quite well. I brought in a few flowers and put them by my kitchen window sill. They looked beautiful for one day, but now appear to have closed themselves up. If so, I will return them to nature.

 Imagine my surprise when I saw this last lilac on my front yard dwarf lilac plant.

THE POPE COMES TO VISIT

I have the honor of hosting the Pope from the

Argentine in the spare bedroom of my house

He is testing the waters before his official visit

come September. 

His white helicopter landed in the 

back yard, its frightful noise scaring the cardinals and even the

bluejays, as it swept up dry leaves from the grass, blowing

them everywhere. They stick to the screen of my back porch

art studio.

The Pope dresses in street clothes so he won’t be recognized

by curious neighbors. I lent him the suit worn by my ex-

husband when he visited, and told him the reason why I

left him. The Pope sighed and nodded his head.

We took our coffees out in the front yard and sat on

lawn chairs. We kept the conversation light, no talk

about gays and lesbians or the importance of abortion.

“You haff such a variety of flowers and birds and keep

your bird bath filled for them.”

I stood up and twirled around in my blue-sequined

dress. Luckily I remembered to wear panties.

“I so love them,” I said, as a long-beaked chickadee

flew into his painted bird house.

“After I retire,” said the Pope, “if I do, no vun can predict

the future,” he took a sip of his coffee, “I will spend

quiet mornings quite like this.”

I wondered where that would be, but he answered my

question.

“The Lord God above will show me the way, as He always

has.”

I looked at this man seated in the green lawn chair

with his thin white hair and merry brown eyes

and asked if we could pray together.

He took my hand in his and began to sing softly

“Rejoice in the Lord alway and again I say rejoice.”

The red-tailed hummingbird alighted on his shoulder

small, pulsing, long beak pecking at his cheek

All I could do was stare. 

 Click to enlarge and you'll see Ms Chickadee perching on the shepherd's crook.