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The Gore and Glory of Gardens
By Jane Tawel
August 27, 2026
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How glorious to get gory in the garden.
The scratch of thorns on forearms,
the blisters from the dig with gloveless trowels,
the sweat in pits and crevices of this
amazing bucket of blood and water
that Nature has formed around my soul
to care for my small patch of Mother Earth.
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I felt once young and clean again today,
to shape the world with loving shears and mulch.
To mix my blood with Wood and Fruit —
the trellises like crosses,
and vines with open mouths and wounds,
accepting my small part in their salvation.
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We small shoots in the ever-growing Universe,
have so much love to give,
have so much love to receive.
To be afraid of change and growth,
is to experience, once more,
our Banishment from The Garden.
I look at the dandelions,
determined to take their place among the flowers of the world,
And I say to them,
“We are not so different, You and I”.
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Today, I told the lilies of my field
that though the heating Sun
would kill them now,
their regal raiment was secure;
for beauty never really dies.
And as I brutally cut away
the dead and dying parts
of branch and leaf and husk,
I sang a song of blessing
on the roots and shoots and buds.
I told the bees who looked at me askance,
“A garden must suffer to thrive,
A garden must die to live,
A garden will give and give and give
And you, dear bees and I, must care for Her
with all the skills and love together we can bring”.
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A Garden is a glorious, gory thing.
How wonder-full to walk in The Garden,
Returned to The Presence,
at One with small, real, lovely things.
A cosmos contained in a back yard,
shedding blood and sap and dew,
continually dying cells
and resurrecting Life.
We are meant to be
at One,
as Kin,
at Home,
returned to Eden,
in small patches of soil.
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© Jane Tawel, 2026
Jane Tawel 