Gardening Eventually I begin to understand what the old black gardener has told me at the dinner table, licking his tequila-burnt lips: when I die I'd rather die in my garden! The warmest soul I've ever met in this Land of Free. A weather-beaten vet of wars as well as unpleasant history (not just between the opposite skin colors) that only enriched his earth. He laughs like the happiest man alive, telling jokes of the South. Old American jokes, English jokes. When he talks about the widow he's infatuated with, his eyes were filled with grateful sparks as if she were one of the precious flowers of his garden. Had it not been too late into the night, he would have taken me to see his garden, or gardens, brought into life & blossoming by his big, wide hands. It is a neglected neighborhood, my friend told me: You hear guns go off at night. They won't even deliver pizza to us! I think of him now in my own garden talking to my own flowers: I am worshipping the cockscomb crown on Celosia's head. I have to bend to kiss her forehead so low to the moist ground. I am curious about the dreams the hummingbird has heard from my white Petunia: Love, love. Nothing but Love! I am told. Between the graceful Lavender and the succulent Hen & chicks, a kind of girl talk, flirtatious, too private to eavesdrop. Their fragrance quickens my heart. In the morning mist, I decide to get lost in Dianthus's myth, admiring her magical corona, her rain-happy body and hair. What's happiness? I ask Marigold. Before he turns his sun-searching eyes, I feel the wide, thick hands of the old black gardener's, shaking mine: I ain't need no more in this world. All I want from that God above is to let me die by my flowers! :june/05