wonder bean

It is the time when people come through Iowa, which is not

such a frequent thing, but it happens every summer about now —

old friends arriving in clusters, as though called back by a hot

and humid siren; Return Home it warbles, touch down if even for a day.

Yesterday, I gulped in an hour at the airport with Kathy, then floated

in the pleasure of an afternoon drink with Chuck. Last week, Ian was

down and on Friday, David comes through. We speed through the quick

rundown of Life, We do the Big Hug, the one meant to last for another few

months or even years, and wordlessly we exchange wonder at love

its fascia-like ability to twine extend, and hold us.

In my friend’s bed last evening, I rested next to her as she curled into pain

that has been gnawing at her for days, keeping her from eating or drinking.

Caressing her arm, massaging her hands, I listen to her breathe.

Silently, we wrestle with worry, of what this pain might bring.

From too much experience we know it’s often a wrinkle that can

be ironed out with a different medicine, some tubing, a port.

But the ending is there, too, waiting behind another door.

We don’t know. So this July evening as the heat waits outside,

in no rush to get anywhere, we lie heart to heart in her twist of sheets,

and I feel the softness of her animal body with my fingers

and wonder, again, at her beauty.

It will be in the id-90s today. Before the sun is high, I lug watering cans

to the garden behind the garage—three trips to give drinks to the roots

digging and burrowing inches (yards?) beyond my sight. Bending low to get

the can at the base of the peach tree I planted in May, I spy

a cucumber—the first! long and curled and just in the right place

for a rabbit, which worries me. More water, more lugging - over to the tomatoes,

I look for blight and search the zucchini for menacing striped beetles.

The last section of my relay is at the pole beans, where I empty an entire

can at their feet, an offering, and peer into their knotted verdant twirls

and see a bean!

A full length bean.

Not an embryonic one.

But a legit Kentucky Wonder!

Surprisingly flat, long, and with a rough, almost hairy texture.

Setting down the can, I bite into it. The green blooms in my mouth. It’s buttery. I’m already thinking ahead to steaming and salting them. But return to what is in my mouth.

So alive. So alive.

Right here, under this humid sky, the bikers out in the

Iowa fields, pedal their way in this direction. The traveling ones cross the

sky, touching down in this middle spot for a catch up. The pained ones curl

in bed waiting for reprieve. The plants thrum with chlorophyll, cycling

toward actualization. Each of us, entwined, moving toward our fruition.