… food center, TEMPLE STREET. Every Saturday!

Thank you, Stop and Shop, for donating your fruits and veggies to St. John’s church! (Oh, Lord, stay with us!)

The greening of Rosalie’s shack continues, unabated. Boughs bend, heavy with fruit! Petals of many colors curl and unfurl while Lilac naps…(do they make a sound?)

Can you grow strawberries in a fourth-floor, Green-Island apartment?

Rose pays 2, 3 and 4 bucks for her flowers. Her spider and tomato plants were free – gifts from friends. Babies at the time – you see their cousins strewn on Home Depot cement floors … big box store scraps… Don’t you see? They are Uranus looking for Puck and the other moons!

I wish moonlight made my plants grow.

I dig dirt! I dig digging my plants new digs!

The furtive, mistress-up-the-street Sabino, my Italian grandfather. With 10 kids, wife and hound dog. An avid gardener… When building his house in North Worcester, by hand, with his sons, he directed them: not too big!

Sabino wanted most of his land for growing

Empty pots beckon.

I – Rose, named after my Polish grandmother, named after the velvety petaled flower – will drive around Worcester today, in search of the most perfect imperfect rosebud!

– text+pics: Rosalie Tirella