Planting the Meadow

By Mary Makofske

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Planting The Meadow

by Mary Makofske

I leave the formal garden of schedules

where hours hedge me, clip the errant sprigs

of thought, and day after day, a boxwood

topiary hunt chases a green fox

never caught. No voice calls me to order

as I enter a dream of meadow, kneel

to earth and, moving east to west, second

the motion only of the sun. I plant

frail seedlings in the unplowed field, trusting

the wildness hidden in their hearts. Spring light

sprawls across false indigo and hyssop,

daisies, flax. Clouds form, dissolve, withhold

or promise rain. In time, outside of time,

the unkempt afternoons fill up with flowers.

This lovely poem sums up some of my feelings this week as I leave teaching for the last time, “I leave the formal garden of schedules where hours hedge me,” and I’m moving into a less formalised time in my life cycle as I retire after 42 years as a teacher.

I am intending to sort my own garden out and “No voice calls me to order as I enter a dream of meadow, kneel to earth and, moving east to west, second the motion only of the sun.”

I probably will only realise the reality of retirement when I move into September as I have been used to a summer break for all of these years so the real change will be the lack of a calling to order in that last week of August, first week of September.

Are you nearing retirement, maybe you have already retired, how did you cope with the change?