New year came. Sun rose earlier than in day before, its break in dawn more northward in sign and movement in sky; and in the morning light and warmth of particular, peculiar winter, they labored together breaking ground in preparing for the spring.
In the open of lawn beside low, small painted shed and rail-split wooden fence unfallen in years of idle—neither keeping in nor keeping out, aesthetic symbol of a purposed past—they turned the earth with spades in breaking of the sod.
There was pleasure in the work, a joy of hope that came in labors made toward future to come in commitment and promise to seeing through.
In flannel shirts and days-worn jeans, they turned the earth, broke the bound of roots; and when they finished the space was cleared from flaxen pale of winter stubble, and the soil shone dark and rich from its years of waiting, saving, for the day when cultivating souls would return to tend and raise gardens from its earth again.
Gardening was in her blood and—like roots and histories and home of the place—she was in begin of the reconnection; in learn by attune all she already knew, innate, through the blood and histories that composed her.
She saw the way the garden would be: rows of greens, cages of vines heavy and bowed in tomatoed summer-bounty; base fan-spread of gourds—zucchini and squash—and others that ran in fine and curled in support around coarse rails of the split-wood fence, its brace and form given purpose again, more than a relic.
In her mind, in further labors, she saw raised beds and thin-vined runners falling from their tops—strawberries ripe in broken pocket-light of the lawn as nature-found by the Osceolas—fresh of the fruit made in sunlight and shadow and savored like light-tongue kiss, sweet in its romance, lover’s spirit.
It was only broken ground, further dream in shadow and sun, but it was a beginning. It was beginning and place where hope and dreams and visions to be would grow; to take root, further enrich and expand, as her own spirit did in grounding tie and richness of the place.
Sun shone high and from their work, light sweat from their labors cooled to their bodies in the after-rest and stilling.
A faint wind blew stirring sundance in fall through trees. She felt a stir and her cover of hidden buds respond.
She thought of strawberries in the light and shadows whirling still around. She imagined the sweet of light-tongue kiss then felt blush, a warming and hue in color of ripened fruit.
She took hold of his hand and squeezed it gently, effect’s draw of his eyes to hers. In their centers, he witnessed gleam—light of new year and hope in promise for seeing through.
He read her rouge, ripen of ready, and he kissed her in the taste of her dream, a sweetness that left each a want for more.
Hand squeezed again, stronger then. He felt her heartbeat through her hold, and together they walked through the broken light of shadow and sun into home amongst the trees: to fire hearth and open floor, rid of their flannel and labor-cool, warmed by the fire’s keep; lover’s tastes and lover’s sensings; bodies sunlight and shadowed, sweet and hued, savored as the summer-ripe fruit.