The Gardener's Morning
The robin's song at daybreak
Is a clarion call to me.Get up and get out in the garden,
For the morning hours flee.
I cannot resist the summons,
What earnest gardener could?
For the golden hours of morning
Get into the gardener's blood.
The magic spell is upon me,
I'm glad that I did not wait;
For life's at its best in the morning,
As you pass through the garden gate.
- Howard Dolf
The Spring storms have passed. I've returned to a very familiar Spring rhythm here. A very grounding rhythm of getting up before the sun. I don't need an alarm clock to wake me. The birds singing away are enough. I put the coffee on, grab my picking apron as I head out the back door. It does my soul well to get a little time to myself in the early hours. When it is quiet. Before the hustle and bustle finds me. Soon enough there are lunches to be made and phone calls to make. But for just a minute all I hear is the wind and the birds and feel the sun begin to warm my little world slowly. I can't seem to help it. Like I am being called to start my day this way from the generations of farmers and gardeners in my family before me who had it in their blood too.
This morning I had an early riser join me just in time for picking peas. I asked him why he was up so early and he told me "Mama, the birds told me the sun was up. I think is time to get up." I don't think he can help it either. I think it must be in his blood too.