Eleven Garden Seasons Later: Remembering my Grandmother

A ripple in the fabric of time

and I am back on her property,

the green and white board and batten house

surrounded by gardens.

Roses that climbed toward the sun,

Zinnia and marigold nodding their heads

in the gentle breeze that carried

the heady fragrance of peonies.

This is where the green residue

coated my childhood skin,

embracing me in a cocoon that would

one day burst forth

Reminding me that it was there,

in that magical Eden that

I was the safest and happiest

that I have ever been.

A gentle breeze and time

shifts yet again,

and I realize that the past

lives only in my heart,

And yet here in my own garden

sanctuary,

I find  myself surrounded by

that same feeling - 

one of safety and solitude,

where I can glance upon some

of the same flowers,

all these years later and reminisce:

The exquisite beauty of an

Asian Jack-in-the-Pulpit,

a distant cousin to those same ones that

she introduced me to forty five Springs ago.

Today marks eleven garden seasons that have

 passed since she took leave,

and yet she is here, every year,

as the first signs of green make themselves

visible - and she remains here until the

snow blankets the garden.