The old man tends his garden carefully, because it is literally his life. The memory-bulbs grow under the surface in the corner by the fence, his strength tree in the middle, mood flowers over there near the gate, and close to the house he keeps the time herbs. They won't grow indefinitely. That's the nature of these mystic plants, but whenever he can get a new cutting to take root, he knows he will live longer. Today he is transplanting thorned rose bushes, grown for his teeth and eyesight, to a sunnier place, where the beans used to grow. Some days he misses those beans, and the hair on his head, but it is only cosmetic. He will survive as long as he can grow more thyme. He carefully uproots the roses and moves them to the freshly dug holes, packing rich, dark earth around their bases, not too tightly, and pruning the branches with love, but no misplaced mercy.
During the replanting, a thorn pierces his skin, and the wound seeps a little blood. The tree, too, oozes sap from a branch in sympathy, and he sighs a weary sigh. He is getting too old for this. The sun saps his energy in a way it never used to do, and he has less time in his garden these days than he could stand when he was younger. Of course, in those days, he pretty much left the garden to take care of itself. Such is the limited foresight of youth. He must go in and rest for the evening, but the day has been well spent, and because of his roses, he can still read and enjoy a good steak for dinner. But as he goes to sleep for the night, he will fail to hear the rabbit digging under the fence and nibbling away at fresh thyme.
Mokalus of Borg
PS - Took me a while to find this one.
PPS - I wanted something just a bit different this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment