Gardening's Silent Night: a Sojourn Amongst Flowers

I had never before seen a sleeping bee. Yet there it was, nestled among lavender petals in the gardening scene. I could see the yellow pollen dusting the bee’s delicate wings. As I looked around, I could see other life in the garden settling down as well. The constant humming of bugs and rustling of the wind had faded just as the sky had turned into a dusky mix of blue, purple, and pink. The breeze is slowing down, I thought as it grazed my cheek.

The flowers were slowly nodding along with the gentle wind. The faint smell of summer hung in the gardening air, coating everything with a sweet contentment. A tired sort of hopefulness had settled into my bones. I was 12 years old; on the edge of childhood, just beginning to venture into maturity. I didn’t feel quite like a person, more like a possibility.

My father had planted a garden, although I use the word garden loosely. The garden had started as dirt, riddled with rusty nails and old bottle caps. It felt like a malignant presence in our backyard. My father decided to change this. One day he let some seeds go free and we soon had our own field of wild flowers. They grew with an uncontained chaos, eventually overtaking our backyard.

Mexican sunflowers grow six feet high, with petals the color of the burning desert sun. They were forever hungry for the sky. On balmy afternoons I would position myself underneath the flowers, looking up and yearning to be as tall as they were.

Cosmos flowers grew in wild, violent tangles. The buds were ugly brown lumps on spindly stalks. Despite this, the flowers would bloom in the loveliest shades of lilac and pink. It was here where many of the bees would make their beds for the night.

The small, cheerful poppies were my favorite. The fresh flowers were an orange so deep and bright that it remained burned into your eyes long after you had closed them. But what drew me to the poppies were the petals. The soft silk of a poppy conveys a gentle innocence that only nature could create. These flowers had sprung forth from an unforgiving ground. Taking root amongst old pennies and broken glass, they had forged themselves into a forest where the flowers had thrived.

The other night I walked past my neighbors garden. A few poppies had begun to bloom. I sat down besides them, and felt the sleek petals.The colors in the sky had faded to an inky blue. A few stars were blinking in and out of existence. The air seemed at rest. The flowers had closed their petals for the night. They look so simple, I thought, resting on the sidewalk. I looked up at the flowers swaying, and I thought about possibilities.