A small roof garden is enough
watching for one person.
Plants warn wilt or rot
not enough, too much,
slip away even in a night,
grow bounds.
Leaves are eaten
in hours.
Spiders,
bees,
these up here
feed with urgency.
Pots and troughs
slough off or sprout seeds.
This year they've gifted a cala, tomato, celosia,
but stunned snapdragons
into dormancy.
My garden's timeline is not mine.
Agapanthus is slow, at least more two years to go.
Trees and grasses assume independence,
fade and bloom when they want,
though I feed and water them.
I watch adventitious wanderers,
airborne, refugees
from damp,
and dry succulents swell, rejoice, spill over.
I am lessoned on too little and so much,
given daily reminders
of want and adjustment,
sufficiency,
dependence.
Eight stories up,
green stories told,
I listen, I learn,
and grow old.
