Shooting Stars

The okra gets too big before I harvest it. This happens every year. I harvest only a fraction of what the plants produce, but I keep coming back to it. Okra is beautiful and strange and satisfying to watch and satisfying in the stomach. Even just little.

Things that have grown well so far this year: the sonca squashes, the garlic, the potatoes. The August-planted snow peas, the volunteer kale. Next year,  bush beans for shelling. Next year, popcorn, again.

During winter, I started flower seeds with such care. Then summer came, and I neglected them. Still, never watered, never tended, the shooting stars persisted, and today I finally planted them around the young-ish white oak. Antonio Machado said that to do something well is more important than doing it, and maybe that's true, but I'm not sure.

Today I sat in the vegetable garden and read about Japanese gardening. I read what Matsuo Basho said, Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and do not learn.