“An Observation

True gardeners cannot bear a glove

Between the sure touch & the tender root,

Must let their hands grow

knotted as they move

With a rough sensitivity about

Under the earth,

between the rock and shoot,

Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.

And so I watched my mother's

hands grow scarred,

She who could heal the wounded

plant or friend

With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love;

I minded once to see her beauty gnarled,

But now her truth is given me to live,

As I learn for myself we must be hard

To move among the tender with an open hand,

And to stay sensitive up to the end

Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.”

~May Sarton #poetry