I picked my first home-grown cucumber of the season this morning. All of my plants are potted this year, so what I harvest now is on the miniature side of things. A burgundy-red tomato, its soft sphere the size of a half dollar. Chilies of an ornamental nature. They are extensions of my own time spent nurturing the soil and small plants with water, care and concern. The small acts are intimate, the harvest satisfying, the eating sensual.

Why do I forget this? My recent malaise seems to stem from lack of contact with the earth. Too much time spent behind a computer screen, sitting in meetings, reading, napping. Nothing that a little honest sweat doesn’t heal.

“Nothing can o’er take me in life that time alone in nature won’t restore,” wrote Frost, or something along those lines. Poetry somehow escapes me even when its meaning retains a place in my soul.