Claire Fullerton - Writer
In a Garden
Its been blowing incessantly with gusty winds that have sailed through the grass and swayed through the treetops for days. It has been a force to reckon with and each step outside has been to secure something or other that is better left removed than at the mercy of the wind. Looking towards the ocean, I see that she dons a new personality. I thought I knew all of her vagaries yet in the wind, she is moody, she is upset and she is rocking in multicolored facets under a kaleidoscope of light and I do not recognize her. She wears a white hat as she crests and flows and lets out an intermittent roar that sounds like the rat-a-tat-tat of firecrackers. She is matching the rhythm of the wind and doing her part to join in companionably saying we are all one; I am all one with you and if this is the way of heaven and earth, then I will play my part in the symphony.
After two days, the wind exhausts its histrionics. It has made its point lest anybody misunderstand. Build our houses as we will, secure our lands and make our plans; the wind will rise from any direction it feels like expressing and swirl around as if to remind us that it has existed since the beginning and we are all here on borrowed time in comparison.
After two days, stillness ensues so dramatic in contrast that we take nothing for granted – not the wind nor the water nor the reprieve for they lay side-to-side together saying neither of us would be one without the other.
A garden lays hillside waking up in the early morning springtime. She boasts Rosemary, Azalea and Lavender and looks up at the wind, appreciative that it has now become placid in synchronicity with the ocean. She remains still save for the kinetic undercurrent that promises nubile growth. She stands erect, confident and proud knowing that she is a magnet of attraction. She basks in the attention of bees and white butterflies thinking some time, long ago, somebody told her that all white butterflies are really, divine angels and she thinks she is well suited for the task.
In a garden, worlds collide born out of fellowship. One has to take into account history and the camaraderie of all living things. One can not be one without the other and isn't that a lot like us – isn't that a lot like life?