Just a spare moment - the urge
becomes irresistible; how to set it
aside? Simply not possible. The
garden sits innocent of guile, simply
there, presenting itself. It is my
critical eye that observes all those
little tasks that beg the attentive,
perfectionist (me?) gardener's
task-responsive bustle.
To be done: shrub trimming, tree
cut-backs, perennial divisions,
insecticide concocting-and-spraying,
dead-heading, weed-pulling, coddling
and watering; staking and replacing.
Only then, when all is in impeccable
order, every plant in its seasonal session
of bloom and display, can the exacting
gardener rest her attentiveness to
excruciating, minuscule detail.
On the other hand, perhaps not,
for none of those tasks has a defined
beginning or an end but for the imposed
interregnum of winter cessation: It is
well to remember that the garden we
champion strives to emulate nature
not the self-obsessed nature of the
self-flagellating gardener.
The gardener who, to assure the pleasure
of aiding, not compelling, encouraging,
not demanding, will inevitably discover
the sweet solution to compulsion.
The garden's rewards in sumptuous
exuberant loveliness, its ultimate award.
The hot, steamy day of clear skies
and fierce sun streaming the landscape
has vanished. Darkness has descended,
the sky obscured by brutish, threatening skies,
unleashing torrents of rain. The arrival of
thunderous applause at this scene-stealer,
the darkness lit by sharp daggers of light
and more thunderous appeals for clouds
to release hail upon the hapless gardens.
We are in the eye of the storm, a dense
black eye emitting of its own monumental
impulses, sullen and angry as the morose
elements capture the world in a fierce
embrace of heat, humidity, sturm und drang.
The drama concedes of no surcease until
its miserable will is wilfully done.
The swaying trees, shifting through the
message of the power elite, the cowering,
fearful caught out under the dense cloak of
nature's fury, quiver under the assault
of her ferocious symmetry. Nature and her
volatile elements sulk and abrade the anxious
nerves of her creatures for awhile, then bored
with their own powerful conceits, the darkness,
the thunder and lightning, the volumes of rain
and frozen spittle, the wind and the sound
shuffle off centre stage, exeunt right.
A truly amiable, good-natured
day has transpired, the sky openly
conspiring with the sun to admit
no more than gentle skeins of
lacy-white clouds brief intermission
of the radiant orb. Heat permeates
and sizzles the atmosphere, as
a lazy breeze rattles the forest leaves.
There is the rustle of robins
peering in vain along forest trails,
veering from one verge to another,
choosing to run, not fly, until resigned,
they flap to tree branches above and
sweetly express anticipation of heat-
relieving showers to reveal for their
delectation creatures of the soil.
Yellow admirals in search of
elusive partners roam the airspace,
dreaming of elemental binary relations,
however brief and brilliantly obsessive
the instinct of survival and pleasure
endowing all nature's organisms. Bees
and dragonflies zip and freestyle their
own existential and brief priorities.
Sunny buttercups, milkweed, Solomon's
seal and pink-perfect fleabane stipple
the landscape's understory in a tangle
of cowvetch and ferns, under flowering
dogwood and honeysuckle. There for a
quick study in ephemeral beauty, the
miniature perfection of blue-eyed grass,
already withering under the sun's glare.
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.
The elemental forces of nature
in their various manifestations
from fearfully dread to
divinely inspired present for us
daily monumental challenges and
equally impressive joys. Several
miles distance and less can separate
a wickedly deadly windstorm whose
vortex sweeps clean in its
destructive force, and a gentle breeze,
lifting the wings of butterflies.
It becomes chance and fortune
much more than circumstance
that happens to blow an ill wind
or a teasing one. Just as well we
live our lives unaware that
we take our diurnal chances.
There are those days, and they are
ample, and amply gratifying, when
the elements relent sufficiently to call
an armistice in incessant raging winds
and fierce rainstorms, to produce days of
fulsome sun, drying breezes and the
reassurance that nature shares
pleasantries at least as frequently
as she enacts scenes of distress.
This is one of those days, when a
furiously angry sky has been replaced
by the kindness of baby-blue and whipped
cream. The breeze merely riffles newly-
greened foliage. Dragonflies whip about
nipping airborne pests, wings flickering,
bodies bejewelled in iridescent reds, greens,
blues and golds. The forest understory is
beaming with blooming dogwood, pink
and white honeysuckle and hawthorn.
Down in the ravine, the call of a wild
turkey anomalously negotiating
unfamiliar territory. A hawk, circling
above, whistles, riding the tumbling wind,
its predator's eye fastened on the accelerated
exit of its alerted prey. The bright carmine
of a cardinal, then another, flashes from
tree to tree, their trills as priceless as the
overwhelming fragrance drifting
the landscape toward perfection.
He feels unfairly put-upon, that
much is abundantly clear. Not for
him, the frenzied antics of his canine
peers attempting to communicate
their urgent desire to gambol about
free and careless in the urban woods.
His wish is to forever loll in the sun,
recumbent and satiated with the
sloth of comfortable stillness.
Grudgingly, helplessly, he permits
the ritual of collar and harness,
leash attached, to set out on his daily,
oh so unappreciated stroll in the woods.
Once upon a time that was a vigorous
jaunt; now, no amount of tugs on the
leash, verbal urgings at first quietly,
hopeful, mounting to exasperated orders
impels him to pick up his pace.
His human companion tells him
he'll never get anywhere at that rate,
and despairs she will not, either. She
tells him he has begun to behave like a
tired old tubby, but he is unmoved -
literally. You're only twelve, she pleads;
look at your sister go! She's almost nineteen
... he cares not a whit. For if he thinks
of himself at all, it is as an inchworm.
