Dr. Earth

The first gift the cute guy gave me was a small box of four rocks he'd collected on a road trip. He wrapped the box with a remnant of ribbon and I carried the rocks in various pockets for years. Twig nests, a worm bin and garden stones have followed but in the last few weeks he's outdone himself.

First he cut and surprised with me an armload of green cattails, five feet tall, that are curling and turning, drying their flat green leaves in a fat glass vase. They are the perfect back drop for the new library book of poetry, Red Bird by Mary Oliver, her voice familiar and strong. And I love that as much as I love the weathering weeds in the corner of the room.

Then the cute guy uncovered an abandoned wasps nest made of tissuey layers of mud in forty shades of gray. It didn't make it home in one piece but he gifted me with what remained of the hidden hive. The cone shaped walls are still in the center of the kitchen table.

The last gift is the one I can't stop talking about. He bought dirt for the pots on the back deck. Not just nursery dirt on sale either. He bought Dr. Earth potting soil. I'd never heard of it and thought he might have gotten take for a ride when he told me the price. But now, now I'm a recruit. Dr. Earth is the best potting soil I've ever had. I mixed it 60/40 with the old dirt, planted tomatillos, peppers and a black cherry tomato. And every day the plants grow an inch. In every direction.

And every day I tell the cute guy what an amazing find he made. "I don't know how you'll ever top this," I tell him tucking chubby stems of leaves into their growing cages.

But I know he will.