A Gardener's Thanksgiving Prayer

A Gardener’s Thanksgiving Prayer
 
Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:
 
For children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are;
 
For generous friends with hearts and smiles as bright as their blossoms;
 
For feisty friends as tart as apples;
 
For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we’ve had them;
 
For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;
 
For handsome friends who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the other, plain as potatoes, and equally as good for you.
 
For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussel Sprouts and as amusing as a Jerusalem Artichoke and serious friends, as complex as cauliflower and as intricate as onions;
 
For friends as unpretentious as cabbage, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through winter;
 
For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;
 
For loving friends who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and withering;
 
And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter;
 
For all these we give thanks.
 
By The Reverend Max Coots 1928-2009
Unitarian Universalist Church
Canton, New York