We live in a canyon with significant gardening challenges – about a Zone 2 if you are interested in such things. We have figured out what grows well here and pretty much stick with that (I am always making writerly analogies when the work isn’t growing well, but the place really suits me just fine).

Right now the wind is tossing the willows outside my window, some already turning colour. But just a few miles away, writer Jane Stevenson (The Railroader’s Wife) grows amazing things in her huge greenhouse. A writers’ group exercise resulted in this ode  (with a nod to Kate & Anna Mcgarrigle’s Southern Boys).

Ode to a Telkwa watermelon

At first
such a surprise
that these pale yellow flowers
wan and thin-petalled
amidst their intricate leaves
could become this green-striped globe
fat on the greenhouse ground.

But then
you notice
the unobtrusive tip of the vine
threading it way across the ground
to the scarlet runners
and you remember…

…oh, those southern boys!
so wily
so plump
so firm.