CIRCLE OF LIFE

It is May. My father works in his garden, my grandson at his side. They use wood and steel inplements to turn and worry the soil over and around the blanketed seed and juvenile vegetables that have been lined up like good little soldiers, all in a row. Down one orderly aisle, from beginning to end, using motions as old as the earth itself. A slight pause to gaze back over the work finished and to contemplate the results. There is a look, as of gratifying the craving of an addiction,on the face of my father. He is truly a man of the soil. The soil is rich, red-brown, and moist. My grandson's face reflects, to a lesser degree, the same emotions as his great-grandfather's face. But my grandson is young, inexperienced, and naive in the ways and wiles of life. The soil gives him pleasure, it gives my father peace. There are contentment, pleasure, reassurance, and fierce loyal love in my spirit when I look out my window and view life making it's great circle right before my eyes. From the very instant man put hand to tool and tilled the soil, through the eons of time and acquisition of wisdom, the continuity of birth, growth, death has never been embodied in any more wondrous way than watching a man, watching a child, watching a garden.