Oh My, The Garden

This September garden has captured my
eye and will not let it go. Insistent that I
stand there awestruck at the grand drama
of its late-summer presentation, demanding
I linger, a prisoner of bawdy beauty beyond
mere imagination. Memory will not suffice,
not fond recollection, nor paltry imagination
to return this sublime scene to my mind's eye
during the harshly frigid winter months.

They flaunt themselves, the roses, phlox,
turtleheads, black-eyed Susans, coneflowers,
coreopsis, Carpathian bellflowers, rose mallow,
Japanese anemone, asters, blanket flowers, and
coral bells, chrysanthemums and hydrangea.
Morning glories, clematis, honeysuckle vines too,
yet boasting blossoms. Bees linger among the
floral heads, pollinating their hairy legs. White
cabbage butterflies, vivid-bodied dragonflies
lazily blizzard the garden and birds take their turn
with wasps to linger at the cool, clear, birdbath.

And then my eyes drift dreamily to the garden
pots and urns, with their glorious abundance of
sun-soaked brilliance as bacopa, mimulas,
begonias, potato vines, lobelia and ivy, geraniums
and impatiens, dahlias and marigolds, nicotiana
and gazania, petunias and portulaca, rhapsodically
chime an aesthetic divine. Nothing short of amazing
what a garden left to its devices will produce.

Another summer fleeting by! Hardly had we
accustomed ourselves to its rich tapestry of form,
texture, fragrance and colour than the calendar
reminds us to luxuriate in the moment, fasten gaze,
lose ourselves within the breadth and the depth of
nature's splendid bounty. And sadly, prepare
to wave another summer ruefully adieu.