The flowers are smiling

I’ve been sitting in the garden for the last couple hours reading poetry.

That sounds so noble and admirable but I must admit why I am sitting in the garden reading poetry. The power is off, so I can’t work on my school prep which I should be doing inside. And, as much as I love the idea of randomly reading poetry in the garden, and as much as I would love to be a random poetry reader, I’m not one, anywhere. I am reading my AS Literature class’s set poetry. I told them to read all the poems we haven’t covered yet, annotate and think about them this holiday. So I’m making sure my students aren’t ahead of me.

But I am glad to be in the garden reading poetry. It is warm – hot if you sit in the sun. There is a breeze at the back of my neck that is cool, despite the warm sun. Some very noisy birds are arguing in the trees above me – arguing, definitely not singing which would sound so much more poetical but not nearly so real. The breeze is making the banana leaves above my head dance their shadows over my book and computer. And the flowers are smiling.

About 10 minutes ago I got tired of trying to figure out what the heck R.S. Thomas was talking about in Here, so I put my poetry down and just sat, enjoying the argument above my head, the dance at my feet and the smiling flowers. For some reason, this year the garden seems to be exploding in flowers. Our garden used to be Dad’s domain but recently Mum has stepped out and claimed space in it as well. The result? More flowers than I’ve seen in our one acre garden. It’s like they’re trying to outdo each other in who can plant the most flowers. Mum has her special section that is just crammed with flowers. The other day she said to me,

“Look, my Barbertons are so happy”.

And they were. Flowers are amazing. They just grow and look beautiful. Most of them serve no practical, useful function in the world at all. But they grow. And they smile and they make me smile. I’m so grateful that God cares enough about the earth and me to give us such useless, beautiful plants just because they make us--and Him, I think--smile.