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Persis M. Karim

Devotion

Bowed down before seedlings
this morning, I thought of the tenderness
required of a garden.
One has to believe in magic,
the hopefulness of seeds,
 
and study patience too.
So much of life is like this:
waiting for things and people to find
their own sense of time—
like seasons that bear down
on us, and the earth too. Like the soil
that finally warms to summer
and in longer days pushes things
to grow, to awareness, to fruition.
 
No greater devotion is there
than in the love between people.
I have seen it here, on my street.
Neighbors who greet each other
on the front porch, stepping from the car,
and then, one day enter, at the front door,
into houses and lives, offering soup and comfort,
for the long fight against illness,

against sorrow—the loss
of things  that make us feel human
and whole—that conjure our devotion:
our children, our neighbors who become family,
the person we chose once
to become a husband or wife—
the one who bears out the seasons with us,
shares our fears and impending old age,
and yes, the unknowable future.