Cold March Dreams

There's something about the haziness of this picture that really makes me long for summer. Then, at closer look, I realize this is the garden near sleep--look at the leaves turning on the maple. The farmer's market would have lined their stalls with deep crates of crisp apples and they'd be selling the last of the corn. We would have been sick of picking the straggling wax beans and eating chard.

I would have slipped out quickly and wandered barefoot through the early September evening to be with the insects and the cooling air and the heady scent of the garden going to seed. The cosmos' bright orange petals had begun to sharpen into black seeds, and the whole garden was a mess of weeds and invasive don't-belongs. I would have snapped some pictures, felt discouraged at the state of things, and hurried back inside for dinner.

But now, at the end of this fridgid March day, all I want to do is strip off my shoes and my sweaters, wander outside in the gathering dusk, and lie down on the garden path, hidden from everything and everyone by the rambling, scented flowers.

So sing a song of picnics, of wet feet and warm grass!

Of sweat and strawberries and naps in the shade! It's just around the corner, folks, just around the corner. . .