The Garden of Verses

"The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life."...Jean Giraudoux,

There is nothing like a summer evening in the garden. This year, sadly my vegetable garden goes untended. My work schedule has overgrown my life like a noxious bull thistle and I have had little time or energy for this evening work. But last night I focused on my wild pots -little worlds where I can throw seeds into dirt as randomly as a spring wind or a bird migration.

Wrestling with the thining of a stella d’oro, uncovering a random crop of moss hidden under overgrown petunias, rediscovering the robins and the wasp nests I had saved for their simple yet intelligent design brought the joy of discovery well into the evening.

With Mozart floating in on the winds of radio, I paused only to shake my head at the yellow finches having a great game of tag in the sunset while two robins argued furiously after dinner.

I had a buriel for the Painted Lady butterfly who I left last week frantically trying to escape through the window. I had tried to encourage her out but she was not hearing me. I buried her in a still blooming tiger lily. She deserves to resurface next year as bloom and the year after that as a humming bird or one of those saucy finches.

The garden is a beautiful school. There is something for the scientist, the philosopher, the artist and the poet. Even the politician and the military could take notes from the constant negotiation of boundary lines, resources and squatters rights.

One night in the garden is a study into the deepest natural order of things. Take notes, feel deeply, inhale and grab and a trowel.

Dear Uncle Jim. this garden ground

That now you smoke your pipe around,

has seen immortal actions done

And valiant battles lost and won.

Here we had best on tip-toe tread,

While I for safety march ahead,

For this is that enchanted ground

Where all who loiter slumber sound.

Here is the sea, here is the sand,

Here is the simple Shepherd's Land,

Here are the fairy hollyhocks,

And there are Ali Baba's rocks.

But yonder, see! apart and high,

Frozen Siberia lies; where I,

With Robert Bruce William Tell,

Was bound by an enchanter's spell.

(thank you RLS)