“Would you like to work in the garden today?” he asked. “I know the ground is probably heavy, and there’s a chance we’ll make a mess, but we can always amend if it isn’t right if we labor and work a little more.
It’s a beautiful day.
I want to be in the sun, and I want to be with you and by your side.
I want to see the change and effects of our labor in efforts made together.
I don’t want to just look at you across a room, think quiet and wonder what’s in your mind—close but still in distance. I want to live and work beside you, share in a same one effort, to make life—ours and what the garden grows and whatever more may come.
I want to be tired and restored from our work and our labors, to feel a warmth of spirit in forward-looking hope and, too, the feel the same in a body, used.
I want to watch you undress when we come indoors and rid ourselves of clothes and soil; to see you glowed from time in the sun and labor toward what you love; to join you in the shower—to wash your back and you wash mine and see whatever other love-expressions we might share…”
Voice trailed as words failed and thought remained.
She was beautiful right then—in blue jeans worn close and tight and fitting to legs and hips with cuffs rolled once so as not to step upon in walk of her bare feet, toes painted white in accent touch to body’s end; a white tank tee, close too in fit, with broad straps that showed, still, her skin of shoulders near to neck and ends into bare of arms. First day of warmth where she dressed as so on day of almost-spring, he dreamt her shoulder’s freckled-cast restore in hours left shone to light. There held a beauty in her plain of face, unmade, in way of it’s natural state; especially after hours spent in rest; her hair’s draw back into ponytail behind that left roots sheened and smooth.
He looked through the window onto world beyond and knew it’s changing in the warmth and light of sun.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he spoke again. “I want to be in the sun. I want to live this day in enjoyment, beside you. Would you like to work in the garden today?”
She smiled, rose, and disappeared away and out from room. When she returned, bare feet were covered in wear of boots made for nature and walk upon open earth. Leather gloves covered hands. Her eyes and lips were smile.
Together, they turned the earth. Together, they planted bulbs. They scattered lettuce over worked bare ground and walked it into contact with soil after.
They finished in the set of eve, last of sun low and spreading orb of gold becoming line across horizon-divide.
Indoors, they stripped themselves of the soil over clothes. Beneath, they were pristine.
Before ever making to the shower, he took her in the love he’d felt in growth and build all the while that they worked, an intimate that brought his tremble and her inner-center’s flutter; smiles and lightness in after-lay, gentle kissing and holding still as they kept—softly, sweetly—in love’s restore and lead into second-make of intimate way; flicker-light of her tongue to his lips as tremble came into her strong, her body as his in first and then into flash after-tremors, light through body, as he loved her gently on.