One Piece by Brenda Kay Ledford

Garden of Life
A Sestina

Wearing her straw hat, Blanche gathered
Silver Queen corn from her garden.
The sun scooped across the sky
held promise of a future, sunflowers.
Rondie loved fresh vegetables,
his laughter filled the red-plank house.

Children played at Blanche’s house,
wondered what she would gather
from her cornucopia of vegetables,
pretended they could garden
like her, grow rows of sunflowers,
life pulsing beneath the sun.

Night bent its elbow across the sky.
Rondie told Irish stories in their house,
wind whistled through the sunflowers
rain tapped the tin roof, Blanche gathered
the kids, sliced squash from the garden
washed jars to can vegetables.

Drought snagged the vegetables.
Rondie looked for clouds in the sky,
leaves wilted across the garden.
Sweat drenched sheets in their house,
the children fussed, gathered
stalks of dried sunflowers.

Blanche roasted the sunflowers
served them with vegetables,
found herself with thoughts, gathering
roses beneath a bleeding sky.
She remembered Rondie leaving the house,
her tears fell in the garden.

She lost herself in the garden,
drew strength from the sunflowers,
recalled Rondie laughing in their house,
wondered if he had vegetables
as she gazed into the sky,
blight specked the beans she gathered.

He gathered, labored in the garden
of life. The sky caressed sunflowers,
vegetables abound in his heavenly home.

{Poem by Brenda Kay Ledford}