Precious Commitment

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Your commitment is precious—let’s honor it!
 
Mulling “Commitment” while riding my bike,
It showed up for me in a different mode.
 
Beautiful mid-morning ride on
Newly paved road, which had been gravel for 
Fifty years I’ve known of it.
 
Now fabulous surface, WIDE shoulders,
Interesting, manageable hills.
It has remained closed during final tweaks—
Painting lane lines, 
Seeding and covering side slopes, to prevent erosion.
 
Last day of “closed to through traffic,”
I was there soaking up blissful, quiet riding.
Soon it will be major shortcut for trucks.
 
In large field on my right,
A woman on her knees, hand-weeding.
You seldom see hand-weeding around individual plantings
In large fields.
She stood up and begin to cut tall weeds 
Using a “weed-whip”.
Also unusual in large field. 
 
Stopping, I called out,
“What’s your crop in this big field”?
 
“Christmas Trees!
Come back in seven years to get your Christmas tree.”
 
“Thanks!  I will.
I’ll go home and put it on my calendar.”
 
She said it’s been a hard year for the plantings.
Drought conditions in this part of MN.
Still, she was cheerful, hopeful,
Actively getting me on the customer list,
Seven years hence.
 
Now—I don’t know how to schedule seven years out.
I’ll figure out something though …
And we haven’t put up a Christmas tree for twenty years.
Plus in seven years, I will be 91 years old.
 
Somehow, someone will show up  
Representing me, buying the tree.
Honoring her commitment,
One-tree-at-a-time, weeding on her knees.

Hugs.
Lin

Limerick:

Think other than biking, I submit
Encouraging others to “com-mit”.
Commitment, though small,
Requires of us all….
To work with that focus, bit-by-bit.