Semi frozen in the gale, upon a long scarred stem, was a stubborn flower. Upon that icy landscape, its red caught the eye as easily as a traffic light in the gloom.
Barely tethered to the sharp and rocky soil was a flower. Its ghostly pale petals, tattered and torn, bore the first dirt that came to bury them. Its stem, snapped in a storm that rumbled still, would never survive another downpour. An afternoon of sunshine could revive it, but none will come. The horizon brings only a mean, slicing rain.
I am to "gardening" what my teenage daughter is to "bedroom tidying." I see what's there but I don't have the slightest idea what to do with it. On a July afternoon two years ago we strolled around this garden, the herby aromas whisking us off to pleasant evocations of italian restaurants. Each plant grew close to the others, but distinct and quite soothing in the way it was both natural and yet still orderly. But a garden is not an oil painting and plants are quite different from an exquisite dining table or chair. Without the former owner, the one who loved to potter and weed, trim and return to the kitchen with fresh herbs for cooking with, the neglect has set in. At first I joked that it was more charming for the reduction in neatness, but truthfully this city girl, this condo dweller, was never raised to take care of so much as a pot plant. My food comes in plastic packages and I gravitate toward the park with lunch during the week - still seeking the orderly nature by someone else's hand.
The apple tree was to be the jewel of the garden. The way Tom planned it we would be drinking in the aromas of the late summer blooms, soothed by the waterfall between the two ponds and sinking our teeth into the delicate skin of home grown organic apples. After a busy winter and spring in the warehouse, sorting inventory before the big boss's audit, the neglected tree was in no state to be the jewel of anything. The bark had a sort of creeping mildew and the leaves were curled in an unhealthy way. It bore apples of sort, some even with a pink blush, but they all bore deep brown spots. Tom frowned, the television show had made all this look so simple, he's spend a few grand and have a garden oasis for summer. He cast his eyes to the fish pond...
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