in an irish garden

A garden is like a poem.
You can work in it for five minutes.
You can work in it for a few hours.
You can hold it in your heart all day without doing any real work in it at all and return to it when you are ready.
You can work in it for longer.
You can work in it for days.
All week.
All month.
All year.
You can sit in it and simply savour what it is.
Weeds, buttercups, colour, sky and air
Or damnable rhodadendrons
Which languish there all year
And then flourish magnificently for a full five minutes
And don't start me on the eucalyptus
But begin.
Go find the garden that is for you.
And the time.
God will teach you while you work.
He'll show you harmonies.
And let you know you're part of his poem.
It doesn't all happen at once.
A garden is like a poem.
Sometimes you'll sow seeds and they won't grow.
You'll think I'm no good.
I can't do this.
Gardens are not my thing.
And then a few of them will grow.
And you've learnt where to plant them.
Or when.
Or that gardens bring blessings without learning.
Or something else.
Maybe you've learnt nothing but the joy of a gentle surprise.
Sometimes flowers you thought dead come back to life a year later.
Sometimes the ones that died make room for nicer ones.
You realise not all the graces come at once.
God has his own pace.
He's bringing you into his harmonies..
Rhyming, free verse, or Shakespearian.
The choice is your own.
And his.
A garden is like a poem.
My father's roses are in bloom again.