Growing things

Growing, living, green, and feathered things. Flowers bees, earthworms and chickens. The first peas that are just starting to push outward from the white flowers. A space near my house where my friend Val and I can sit at dusk and listen to the world and watch the roses fade from pink to blue as twilight slides into dark.

The warm, soft, chickens as they're carried in for the night. I'm proud that they've learned the routine--into the recycling bin, into the house, peek, hop, then into their house for the night. They're out of their awkward stage, looking like little hens now.

The beans are preparing to twine up the trellis, the dahlias just breaking through the soil, the dogwood blossoms spent for another year.

I look to the growing things around me for some solace this week. Val's cough that was asthma last week, is now suddenly a tumor in her right lung. She makes a fist when she describes its size and placement. I make one to the sky.