Garden Dirge

In spring the soil under my hands was
friable and warm from exposure to the
sun and gentle spring rains. The ritual of
soil preparation, the excitement felt with
the first burst of bright green spears
appearing overnight through that soil
and the expectation of more, ever more
revealing their underground presence in
an inexorable thrust as though perennials
were gleefully announcing, 'we're here!
remember us?' as though you could forget.
For weren't you the enabler, planting that
small beginning plant life when the garden
started its long career under your careful
ministration, uncertain at first, gaining
confidence as the garden itself did in its
steady maturation. Ah, spring and the
opportunity to set in motion yet another
summer-full of constant colour, texture
the kind of architecture that a gardener
fully appreciates as a work of art even
if, in the final analysis, it is the natural
order of vegetation to respond to wind,
sun and rain and would do so absent your
guiding hand. But this garden, this one
is your dream aspiring to reality, moving
from night to day in bloom and fragrant
presence. And then comes the time when
your hands are enmeshed in cold, wet
soil on the verge of frost when undertaking
the disassembly of that which nature
wrought with your sensitive aid has
initiated its retreat, and the floral
delights you planted have shrivelled
their lifecycle complete. Your garden toil
then is that of an undertaker sadly but
with resolve removing the dead and the
dying, soothing the soil as late fall
advances into winter and all is lost.