In the garden my mother tended,
yellow cucumber blossoms glowed like lanterns.
Where petals of covenant fell shyly,
the waves of midsummer came rushing in.

She labored beneath the burning sun,
her back bent to the Lord’s promise:
“As you sow, so shall you reap.”

She unearthed stones,
split the tangled roots of wild vines,
pulled up weeds,
thinned out stray thoughts.

Gathering fluttering lettuce leaves into her basket,
I remember the long-haired girl with a ribbon,
plucking stars into her chest
as frogs sang through summer nights.

She crossed the barley-hunger hills,
ran in straw shoes
over the winding bends of Hwangdeung-ri, Jeolla—
seventy years of paths behind her.

She never turned from the thirst of green sorrow,
living a little slower,
a little humbler than most.

When ants move their burdens in swarms,
she knows the monsoon is near.
When the moon wears a halo,
she knows tomorrow will burn with heat.

Still, she heeds the Lord’s word:
“As you sow, so shall you reap.”
And with her hoe,
she tills the soil of the heart without rest.

Life floods the garden like a river.
Fragrance rises from it like a well.

And when I step into the garden my mother tended,
her lifelong prayers bloom into fruit—
overflowing the basket in my hands.