A Poet By Any Other Name

It ocurred to me the other day that my husband is a poet in his own way. Not the kind of poet who uses words, because he is quite reticent. In our relationship, I am the verbal one. Michael is very spartan with his words, not unlike Clint Eastwood in his iconic movies, like " A Fistful of Dollars". It is at times quite amazing to me that we have been together now for 29 years. Opposites attract is definitely a theme with us. The way Michael expresses his spirit is through his garden, which is an abundance of flowers, bushes and trees of all colors, shape and variety. We have flowers just for fun, we have fruitbushes, such as blueberries, raspberries, red currants and strawberries and hazelnut bushes. We have plum, cherry, apple and Asian Pear trees. All give fruit that we enjoy tremendously. We have polebeans, and squashes in the garden, and we grow tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers in our greenhouse. We even grow a modestly successful Moscato grape. It allows us to enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables well into fall. There is nothing like it, to eat outside on our deck that my husband and father built 20 years ago, and eat the produce from our own garden. It is so satisfying, and to me, so poetic to live so quietly and peacefully here in a quiet neighbourhood in Olympia. I look around my patio with its overflow of petunias, and pansies and rockroses and fuchsia, and look forward to the beautiful tall sunflowers we will have again this summer, and I feel like we have eked out our own small piece of bucolic bliss, thanks to the garden skills of my husband and his devotion to maintain it all these years. On the days where I might get frustrated that he does not easily express himself verbally, I look at my backyard and remind myself his soul is full of poetry and beauty, it is just not in words. In wintertime, Michael builds a roaring fire in our fireplace, with the wood he chops and gets from our woodpile, and makes a delicious beefstew or lasagna to keep the cold outside and out of our souls, as winter greys envelop us in sky and temperatures. Little may be said, but the warmth created by his generosity makes up for it easily. Some of us are poets with words. Some of us are poets in deeds. I think the world needs both. I know my world does.