The Garden

© ravgustin / Shutterstock.com

The wind whispers, rustling the leaves of the old may bush. It has been here for forty-eight years, its green laden summer branches home or hide to the many small birds who visit this place. The grass beneath my feet is tough and resilient – buffalo grass, I believe. In the shade, over by the house, is a large clump of papyrus, murmuring a song of long ago, first heard by a different wind in a different land of kings, gods and desert moons.

Around the corner is a red rose bush, growing wild, yet blooming as prolifically as any pampered rose bush might. There are so many trees and plants that grew here when I was a child, and still thrive today. I love to take pictures of them, every year, for no other reason than they are there and they are splendid. When I look at these images, I am reminded that beauty and inspiration are only ever a heartbeat away.

These plants are the survivors. There are plants that I only remember – a lavender bush whose fragrance one moonlit, rain-kissed night took me to nirvana and back, a pelargonium whose light and dark patterned leaves were as fascinating to a child as the bright red flower, the beds of purple, pink and violets growing in abundance wherever shade beckoned, the snapdragons and sweet peas that grew in a rainbow of colour by the side fence.

But many a drought has exhaled its dry, fiery breath over this green heaven, and not all those plants were able to persist under the relentless heat and the years of water restrictions that such droughts bring. The ones that remain here are the survivors. They have endured their trials, outlasted their rivals, and thrived in gentler times. They have experienced the best and the worst, and shrugged both off to testify that life goes on no matter what happens.

This was my mother's garden. It is now my garden. Its name is resilience.

Inspired by a prompt from Jill Badonsky in The Muse Is IN Writing Club.