The Garden

A temporary work by a woman in the wilderness and clean, now we are guests here at peace, however, by the watering can light in this dry evening and the tender small white blossom. She kneels, feeling the ground, none all too carefully out there.

There is a way that when you look hard enough, you realize you’re longing for something larger— the green of the backyard, the fields and old oaks, plants and vines, and where the summer sun comes to visit, that you can see yourself reflected, your laughter held by nature, and becoming whole again. As if the garden is always new, and full of the joy hidden deeper.

Without side-ing, it is nothing at all, if it is only an ordinary garden, as careful as the woman’s heart. What spreads behind it is full of green and loss, as I have known. Would you think deep enough with your heart until it folds back in again, into a smaller whole? Take what seems small and unfurl it. This garden is ours, and all things are possible.

Out, out, in, in! Like the colorful birds who are free to take wing, that is what I mean! You must echo with laughter, blessed are you! the good sense of all things, everywhere. Leave the door open.

And the garden looks up, signaling the spring, opens its arms wide. Those tiny flowers in the backyard hear me explaine: it’s sadness, it’s celebration, the girl’s heart is free again.

What a good life remains. She kneels once more, her small white blossoms open, ie and ear removed from how it truly felt to be here on the edge of a garden! We are whole within these walls, in this garden made for us.

• Mary Oliver