Garden Gifts

The garden exquisitely times its surprises
in a stage-managed expertise no less
astonishing for its seasonal predictability.
The drab but graceful spirea suddenly
presents as an immaculately-worked
bridal veil, its sweeping branches swooning
with the sweet weight of its multitudinous
blossoms of brief perfection. The rose bushes
and climbing roses, rhododendrons and
clematis vines, have thrust into succession
their plump and shapely buds with rising
expectations of days to come in their proudly
exuberant displays of sun-kissed, dew-flushed
blossoms beloved of bees and hummingbirds.

The blossoming lilacs and lilies-of-the-valley
perfume the garden with the gorgeous fragrance
of all earthly delights. The showiest, most
petal-and-colour-delightful of all garden treasures
erupt in a blaze of gentrified glory, as the
perfect, rounded and layered buds of tree peonies
burst open in a display of form, layered
texture and breathless loveliness few other
garden treasures can contest; the ultimate
gift of perfection from nature's storehouse
and an obedient garden, to its privileged host.