Today I plant strawberries.  First I bend stakes to secure the ground cover.  Secondly, I hammer to put the last strike on each stake.  Next, I peel back the slits cut in the cover to mix bone meal into the exposed dirt.  Now, I use a spade to create a hole for the  implanting of the everbearing plants.  When the roots are tenderly placed, I am careful to leave the flowering crown exposed. Finally, I water each plant.

As my hands are in the dirt, I think about the coming months.  I think about "us," the gardener and I.  These strawberries will take two years to season before yielding fruit.  What will the passing of time bring us while we wait for these plants to bear?  Will I be here two years hence?  Are we everbearing?  Am I overbearing?

The gardener is beside me now, preparing the soil in the second row. We always work well together.  Neither of us are chatterers.  I like the rhythm of our labor almost as much as I have enjoyed the rhythm of our love.

Thinking of our lost rhythm reminds me that I am not secured to this ground.  No hand tightens me down.  I am missing bone, and the hole in me is the hole in my heart.  My roots are exposed leaving an open pathway for disease. Since winter I've thirsted for rain. Oxygenless, I am not suckled.  Grow here?  How?

Still, I am in the present.  Flourish to fruition berries, with or without my touch.