Imagining flowers

The stubborn persistence of resistance

I can almost hear the sand rushing through the narrow passage of the hourglass.

Is that what reincarnation is? The hourglass is turned over, and the flow of time starts all over again: a new beginning—with all the potential, mistakes, little triumphs, moments of tenderness—coming once more to an end?

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

It requires discipline and determination to get anything done on these short and cold East Coast days, in this bleak time in our country’s history when it’s hard to believe that one’s scribbles will ever amount to anything more than fading ink on paper in the recycling bin. Or the ash-heap.

So here’s the big question: Should I order bulbs from the catalogue so lavishly illustrated with displays of spring flowers?

Photo by krystina rogers on Unsplash

It’s late in the year, and I’m here, in a place where I won’t be able to procrastinate as long as I did in California, sometimes planting my spring bulbs on the very last day of the year.

Despite global warming, snow will eventually cover the ground in Connecticut—and it will be too late for me, on bended knee, with my visions of a gloriously colorful spring. My fantasies of growing a garden here, as I’ve done elsewhere, in every place I’ve lived, my whole adult life, planting a plum tree, a fig tree, and a double-delight rose. Who knows where I’ll be, five months from now, in the dark days to come—will we flee? Or stay and take a stand for democracy?

Maybe this garden will be the place where my journey comes to its end.

Let me fill it then with flowers that will bloom again and again.

Before Julian went back to Denmark, he downloaded ChatGPT onto my phone—and I must say that far from finding this tool to be in any way sinister, I’m quite enamored of it. The picture above was generated by my sensitive and tasteful robot when I asked it to suggest what flowers and bulbs I should plant chez nous for a garden that would be both beautiful and beneficial to pollinators. At my request, I also got a labeled version showing the Latin and common names of all the plants and suggestions about where to buy them.

I would need a little troop of helpers (as well as a much bigger budget) to make this garden happen. But thinking about it is my favorite dream just now.

Be well, my dear friends! Knowing you’re there, and that we’re connected, has made it possible to face this crazy nightmare and feel the possibility that love and beauty will somehow prevail.

I have some new poems I’d particularly love to share here—but I can’t, because they’re on submission to magazines that have strict rules about being first. In a couple of days, I’ll send some poems out, one at a time, in an email to my cherished handful of paid subscribers. (I’ll wait a few days to see if anyone else hops on board.)

I wish I could give you a slice of fresh-baked bread, too!