In the Garden Near My Love

Feeling alone and melancholy, I walked the quiet path. Most of the time it felt like and earth and sky had planned their pace together.  One always seems to march to the cadence of the other.  Not today. Even though I walked a brisk pace, I noticed the clouds above were anxious. Anxious to run and stretch, not walk. I stopped and looked up. It seemed fitting to give them the attention they deserved. As I gazed upward I had many thoughts of my love; wishing we could walk and talk together.  If he were here, we’d laugh and smile and talk of stars and walk again tomorrow. My love, so far from my touch, is never far in thought. If  only my thoughts could travel to his ears. If only it could whisper sweet assurances, warm his soul, give that whisper of hope just when he needed it.  If only…  I thought aloud to the clouds, spoke right up to them like the friends they are to me. Every evening we meet, the clouds and I, and they put on a spectacular show with the sun. Yes, maybe I’m a dreamer, but it looked as though the clouds smiled with the sunshine this evening and as I spoke, my thoughts became like irredescent fog. With an etherial beauty, my thoughts swirled up and up, hovering and moving as one with the clouds. I breathed in deep and let the clouds cradle my thoughts and carry them away.

Time passed.

The clouds gallantly carried my thoughts. They journeyed far, kindly hovered and then dropped my love-thoughts with the rain in the garden near my love.  Drops gently falling, caressed the dirt, speaking truth and life. The one I love so far away, had watched the skies for days, waiting for the needful. Face could be seen pressed to glass, smiling and thinking thoughts, and wondering why the raindrops glistened like the rainbow. Then came the waiting, for all good things need time. He could be seen morning and night looking for signs of growth; anticipating, hoping, yearning. Could it be?

And on the day I reached my love, he smiled secret thoughts and held me close.  He took me to the garden.  While one hand wrapped around me, the other held his prize and this prize he gave to me. We stopped to sit and look and talk and he told me of the rain. With that rain this rose had come. In the garden near my love