December gardens are cold and wet as the
Pacific surf,
Limp as seaweed strewn across channels of
rain draining into a larger sea.
Tomato plant pride, after weeks boisterous
with green and laden with red, lie limp beside other pale stems, now just
memories of a summer’s worth of peppers, eggplant, and squash as big as
footballs.
Time deferred is time lost in a garden.
There is no hold that can be placed on
growing things, no pause or backspace on the riches of seasons.
The sun, save for that one Elijah moment,
moves with persistent passion in a horizon arc, our Earthship harnessed to
giant tresses circling it in a pedantic yet predicable cycle of moody
encounters: now warm, now cool, with now and again Goldilocks moments of
perfection.
Fall rain washes the air and slakes the
thirst of soil and trees. I hear the old horse coughing out the dry dust of
summer and breathing in the night air, humid with life.
Winter rain plumps moss like green pillows
lining sleeping logs and etching waving limbs so that slender grey-brown bark
is festooned with winter-green, and further laced with drops that catch moonlight
and cast a silver sheen.
We live in this moment, in this promise of
redemption, in this seasonal shift.
Renewal of water-stores and bone-rest,
foundational in their primacy, gracefully prepares the way for the resilience
of spring and abundance of summer. But now, now is this essential
moment.
Winter skies clarify star vision. There is
no sky gazing like winter sky gazing where stars strum and throb above us like
platinum plums, and moon beams form Lazarus ladders linking heaven and earth.
The horses and I watch the night grow large
and light and through half-lids I see angels dance holding in their cupped
hands the moment of Birth.
The tiny Appaloosa beats a soft rhythm with
her small hooves. The old buckskin nods and snorts and my two gentle giants
gaze skyward high and long. I hear the gelding’s airy whicker, the long sigh of
the mare, and a stirring breeze in the tall trees.
Together we touch this moment, tasting snow
sifting over us like a clean blanket from heaven.
Redemption is born.
Merry Christmas from Faith & Vincent
