In the Garden

in the garden
of earth and stone
mists stride between stalks
of greening
humming dawn





I've been obsessed with my garden lately. Giving it a lot of my creative time, a lot of my energy. It has been, I know, a way of bringing life to my home when at night all I can think about is death and resurrection.







I've planted several lily bulbs, and impatiently I wait for them to emerge. Impatient, I purchased and planted four already-grown, already-blooming lilies: I needed the color now, the reminder of life now. I was drawn not to classic colors but to the outrageous, to the extraordinary, to the saturated, rich palette of vibrant reds, golds, oranges, yellows, dappled and drawn with some wild god's pollen-dusted crayons. Their wild colors a splash of arterial lifeblood on the lawn.







Three of the rose bushes are blooming wild, and the rest of the roses are bunching out, filling the air with red-green leaves; whether or not all the roses blossom this year, they live, and that's good enough. Not all are as prolific, but take their time; roses require patience, even cruelty. And they reward it.







The reliability of hostas: those green fronds, so tropical, those exotic white and pale lavender flowers that emerge on stalks in autumn, like exotic alien fronds. And they come back, and grow to fill in the rows along the walk, spreading more every year, till a jungle riot of greening lines my walk and livens my door. All returning.



I dig in the dirt, I get dirt on my shirt, on my knees, under my fingernails. It feels like magic: earth-magic, connecting me to something richer in the soil. Bringing me back to some kind of life.



I don't know what I'm doing, or why. It's just there. And driving home, pausing before the house while the garage door takes its time rising, I see what I've planted around the tree in my front yard, before my door, and I am cheered and content.



The garden brings me back. It gives me something living to do. It returns me to life.