At the Center of the Garden

There is a ghost who lives at the center of the garden. In the heat-haze shimmer of a summer afternoon, I can almost see the face of the man he once was, busy with spade and shovel, planting bloom and blossom, carefully carving out the flagstone path that leads to the whimsical shelter quietly nestled in the depths of green. It isn’t hard to imagine its former glory and, dozing with eyes half shut, I listen…

It is here that the wind whispers his tale to me, that stories spill out on rays of sun and spin lazily on dust motes to bee-drone melodies. Sometimes the long grasses rustle their own version, or the cicadas add an aside. This is what I am told…

It is here that he seduced his love with flowers, pressed roses into her gentle hands, wreathed her hair in violets, covered her face with jasmine-scented kisses so fiery that even the lilies blushed. He crushed herbs between his fingers and caressed her cheek with promises of remembrance. This is what he remembered…

Late-night lovemaking. Picnics with his children. His daughter’s graduation and his son’s wedding. Dancing in the moonlight on his fiftieth anniversary, wondering at the quickness of time. Twilight smiles.  Cutting flowers for his wife’s grave. Long stretches spent silently dreaming of the day he would see her again. His eyes closing and then…

It is here, at the center of the garden, tucked among the overgrowth, surrounded by scattered memories and conversing with ghosts, that I am reminded of the fact that nature always takes back her own. It is here, where the scent of passion lingers and the pollen is thick with secrets, that I also realize something else. This is what I know: even in death, love prevails.