Now the rampant growth is spent, and whatever’s left of our flowers will soon stand dry and rattling in the cold wind.
In that quiet, contemplative juncture of the year, when the gaudy foliage is past and the snow waits just around the bend, the minimalist remnant of my flower garden will suit me just fine.
It simply requires the appropriate sight adjustment to find the subtler beauty in the slighter light.
Born of rampant color, stark form and naked line emerge. Stems and stalks, unweighted, vertical and erect against the horizontal gray stones of the wall, beg further scrutiny.
Despite September’s unwonted warmth, it’s not the blossoms’ time. It’s time to rest. It’s time for wispy, vagabond seeds to be freed, for fat pods to drop to the feet of their tired hosts, each complete and full of potential, to be released when the sun climbs back strong in May.
