My Mistress Beckons

I can't help it -- I went to the garden nursery today to pick up some seeds, and the old longing came over me again. 

I'm starting with lettuce, strawberries, blueberries, banana peppers, sweet red peppers, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, better boys, parsley, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, cilantro, asparagus, purple passion asparagus, ...

Re-posted from 2009.
===============
I have a mistress to whom my wife bids me go; "Indeed", she says, "you have been away too long".

It is not a lady that beckons, but rather the earth in my garden. For three years she has lain fallow; no crops, no food, no fruit of the earth has she given me. "Alas", I sigh, "my lady lies barren, my mistress comforts me not."

A man comes from the earth, made by the effortless hand of God; a man toils in the earth to bring forth its fruit by the sweat of his brow -- such is his doom. And yet the garden is his refuge, he longs to feel the land beneath his feet; to plant and to furrow; to take delight in the tender shoots from the earth; to reap and to gather the work of his hand.

If God in His mercy sends His rain in due season, yet shall she bear forth. My fields are plowed, my garden prepared -- let the sowing begin! "Come.", my mistress beckons, "Come and let it begin again."