The beLoved prepares your soil 
With knowing hands and tender heart, 
Recognizing exactly what is needed  
For your exceptional maturation, 
Your sprouting from the shell 
Within which contains all that is known 
For your perfect development. 
 
Bare hands tend you with soil void of bacteria 
Within a tiny space that supports your inception. 
He protects you from the elements 
Of fire, heat, downpour, and intensity of skies. 
He quenches you with gently sprinkled water  
Purified of county’s toxins. 
 
When the timing is right, 
Supporting you in your perfect unfurling, 
He transfers you from tiny space 
To larger accommodations that hold organic matter  
From this 'āina  
From the deep blue kai 
From the feathered two-leggeds that lay golden gifts and fertilize with ease 
For your expansion. 
 
It is time! 
Time to be amidst the edible forest. 
Bone meal from those that swim in the great big blue 
is added to lava rock broken down by the eons 
Insert organic matter, phosphorus and calcium, supporting strong roots and limbs, 
Add magnesium and potassium aiding in greenery and reproduction, 
Nitrogen assisting with your photosynthesis, 
All creating balanced soil. 
A new environment, 
Not nearly as protected, 
But you know you are strong and it is time 
To be amidst your brethren. 
 
It is Mom’s turn now. 
She waters your terrain daily 
Tending plant and earth, 
Removing those unwanteds 
That may rob you of the nutrients  
that he so Lovingly enveloped you amidst. 
 
She offers you foliar spray 
Energizing your leaf cells all the more. 
She concocts a potion of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint suds 
Amidst olive oiled water 
Warding off that nasty li’l Bagrada beetle. 
She atomizes you with baking soda-imbued Miracle-soaped water 
Warding off the white powdery mildew. 
 
As you mature, 
She strips away the lower unwanted leaves, 
Rendering you Virgo tailored, 
Feeding these to the winged two-leggeds 
Enriching their gifts of gold. 
 
The farm shoppers come. 
They ooh and ahh, 
Observing the energetically flourishing being you are. 
The visitors recognize  
The unbounding aliveness & beauty, 
The vibrancy of Life, 
When co-created by wo/man, Earth and sky. 
 
She harvests. 
Leaves of vim and vigour, 
Kale, Rainbow Chard and Collard, 
Earthen roots of crimson colour, 
Fiery orange and zesty white,  
All containing medicinal earthen energy, 
Yellow crookneck squash and vibrant green zucchini 
Culling prior to stem-borers havoc, 
Herbs of intensity – Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, and Chocolate Mint, 
White kohlrabi, alien-structured as they rest upon soil 
With their brassica leaves bursting forth in a multi-directional ray from bulb, 
Broccoli bearing dense green clusters of edible pre-flower buds. 
 
The cuisine. 
Is beyond belief, 
As flavours pop, 
Health exudes, 
Feeding the beLoveds, 
Those perpetually learning 
To nurture, tend, and co-create,  
With Earthen Mother and Solar Father. 
 
The time has come, 
The day is done, 
The cycle is complete. 
Roots removed from soil, 
As worms wriggle to unsheathe themselves 
From entwinement, 
Finding themselves exposed 
AS once again they travel to weave in another’s root web. 
You have given fully and now are offered to the golden egg layers, 
Giving wholly of yourself 
In a cycle of nourishing completion 
From seed, 
To greenery, 
To harvest, 
To feathered ones, 
To compost, 
And back again to nourishing soil. 
 
Thank you, Mother Earth. 
Thank you, Father Sky. 
Thank you, Grandmother Moon. 
Thank you, critters, big and small for aiding in your growth. 
Thank you, seedling, 
Bearing all the Knowing 
Of who and what it is  
You are becoming. 
Thank you all for nourishing  
This human tribe.