Garden

There is a rose in me…red petals soft against dark green leaves…dew sparkling in the sunlight. A fragrance that’s sweetly scented of summer—I keep this rose because it grows in my garden and I will not let it go.

There is an iris in me…broad strong leaves resisting the weeds…growing larger year after year and sprouting new heads and blooms. I grow and expand, spreading rhizomes through shallow soil in flowery circles.

There are potatoes inside of me…. Fat, dirty, born of the earth….carefully grown for next year’s harvest…crisp, white flesh, holding the energy of the sun….I grew them in my garden and my garden requires them still.

There is a penstemon in me…a blue one, resistant to drought…tall, the paired leaves spiral upward…a resting stop for bees….it drops seeds in the dark soil each fall and my garden grows….

There is wheat in me….golden fields playing in the wind… heavy seeds bending to the earth…it wasn’t there before…I plucked it from the wilds and trained and grew it to feed mankind…the wheat makes my bread and feeds my hunger—and my children.

There is soft turf in me…tender green blades of water-loving grass…flowing as a path it connects the beds of roses….it is trimmed around the edges and never allowed in threaten my flowers…The grass grows peacefully in my garden because I want it there and I keep it there.

There is a daisy in me and a black-eyed Susan….The daisy cools the summer sun and feeds the roving aphids, it graces my inner Eden and brings in dreams of Kensington ….The black-eyed Susan grows in heat, releasing stored sunlight with beady orange explosions. These are my hanging gardens, my mountain refuge from the desert—this daisy and the black-eyed Susan are in my garden because I planted them there.

O, I got an arboretum; I got a botanical paradise, inside my thumping heart and dreaming head. The wilderness is there too, invading, trying to take it all back. But I am the gardener here. I keep out the weeds and nurture the flowers. I am he that plants each spring and plucks each harvest. This is my garden and it will grow only as I tend it and I will live with it as it grows.

See also Wilderness