Gardener's Elation

 

Their vibrant faces turned to me as they sat

in serried ranks awaiting disposition in the

garden, within the garden pots and urns newly

prepared to welcome them. Orphans no longer

the dahlias, nicotiana, lobelia, begonias, zinnias

have found their home at last, their ordeal

awaiting winter's final snowfall rewarded in

choice positions where their glorious colour

and insouciant attitudes invite sun and rain

nurturing them to mature confidence to reign in

glory over our summer lives. A hummingbird

shimmers as its wings pause at the flowering pea

in yellow bloom. Cardinals and robins peal

their approval of the blooming season and their

nesting progress. The garden soil is moist and

friable, the tender roots of bedding plants soon

comfortably ensconced and the sensation felt

as seasoned hands bed down a canna lily among

the hostas is bliss incarnate, a wish fulfilled.