The Miracle of Fall

 

 

 With a paint brush in His hand,

He softly touches the tops of trees.

Using rich hues of orange, red, yellow, gold and purple,

He highlights all the leaves.

With a swirl of His brush,

He wraps the Dogwood in scarlet.

Goldenrod He sprinkles with yellow.

A golden bronze the Beech tree’s color He set.

The Bradford Pear He tips with red,

Then slowly envelopes this creation in purple.

Dipping His brush in paint again,

The Sugar Maple sparkles with yellow and orange.

Yellow is His color for the Paperback Birch.

The Tulip tree He paints a mixture of yellow and brown.

Gum trees shine a bright red,

And for the mighty pin oak, a russet is His choice.

Now His palette is almost bare and His brush is still,

But His mountains and hills are ablaze in color.

And thru the mist in the valleys His work can be seen from afar,

As the morning sun dances through the trees.

A miracle He has again brought us.

The Miracle of Fall.

                                  ~Sue Proctor

Here are some pictures from Roberta "Bobbi" Turner's project at the Pegram Community Center.

A Poem

The Glory of the Garden

OUR 'Murica is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You'll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise ;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows ;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our 'Murica is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:-" Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!
 
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away ! 
                                                                          ~Rudyard Kipling 


I personally believe that this should be the 'Official Poem' of the Cheatham County Master Gardeners.
Especially the "Our 'Murica is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:-" Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade", or perhaps the
"And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows"