In spring she walks the waking beds,
where soil lies dark and newly stirred;
each tender shoot, uncertain still,
responds to light without a word.

She bends to press the seeds below,
with careful hope, though none can see
what stirs beneath the quiet ground,
or what, in time, is meant to be.

By summer’s height the garden speaks
in fuller leaf and louder bloom;
the air is thick with living things,
with color cast in bright perfume.

She moves among the crowded rows,
where growth has answered hand and sun—
yet here and there, what once was green
has withered now, its season done.

In autumn, slower work remains:
the cutting back, the gathering in;
the saving of what still may keep,
the quiet reckoning of what’s been.

The light falls lower, day by day,
and shadows lengthen where she stands;
she clears the beds with steady care,
the earth laid bare beneath her hands.

And winter comes.

The garden rests in silent hold,
no bloom, no leaf, no visible sign;
yet something deep remains unseen,
beyond the reach of frost and time.

She walks it still, though little shows—
no less attentive than before;
for what appears as empty ground
may hold far more than it once bore.