To stand in this space

These mornings, I stop at the garden after my run. There’s not much to do. I’ve let the zinnias, celosia and gomphrena stand with the perennials, as cover for birds, the rabbit that lived here all summer, creatures hidden from my sight. In early March, when those stems are good and rotten, they’ll come up easier anyway. I check a few of the fall-planted annuals under the frost cloth. They’re not growing now, in the short days, just holding steady and green. In mid-February, they’ll wake up and begin again.

Less than ten days to solstice. The garden and I are full of sleep, and the truth is, I’ve ordered my growing so there’s nothing to do this month, or next. The dahlia tubers are up and stored, the tulips and the new grape hyacinths (‘Valerie Finnis’) are planted. Next season’s seeds are in the freezer. Now I only want to be with the garden in her dreams, in the quiet sun, that late riser. Nights are for reading, for writing with a cat in my lap.

Some mornings I find that a visitor has left the gate open. I wonder if some come in the night, even sleep here. But an hour after sunrise I’m here alone. The spent morning glory vines, loaded with seed, clasp the arch at the entrance. I reach down and rub the ground ivy leaves for the earthy, dusky scent I first knew in my grandmother’s Illinois backyard. I peek at the dianthus or rudbeckia plants, feel the soil. I’ve never had to water in winter.

I am only half-serious about market production, here especially. Here I step into the trance of flowers, willingly drawn into the dazzle of their colors, the wheel of their seasons. All of them: wild ones and tame ones, annuals and perennials. And the idea of them. I don’t take care to pull the self-sowers; I want the surprises and bonuses.

Summer and winter I cheat the clock for this moment, to stand in the space of the arch and where light reaches through the morning glories. I scan the rows before turning toward the bright day, the university, the human community. “Thank you for saving my life,” I whisper, then step back through the gate.