Garden Psalm

God sat with me in a garden today. With a slight nip in the air, the sun working hard to warm the new day, I took my new book of poetry and went for a walk.  I found myself in a churchyard where off to the side was a small prayer garden. It looked inviting in the glow of morning.  I sat upon a bench and read a few poems aloud to the birds and squirrels - and perhaps some puzzled neighbors wondering what crazy fool was reading poetry out loud on a busy Tuesday morning.

"Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, 'Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.


And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come 
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."
                (When I Am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver)

I stop reading and gaze at a flowering tree. I really should learn the names of these beautiful things. I am struck at how the tree is a visual metaphor - some flowers are only buds, not yet given birth. Some were open, red, beautiful and mature - glorious. Others were brown and giving way to death. It made me sad. Remembering I was also here to deal with grief and loss.

But then the words of the poem came to me..."and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light and to shine."  As I thought about the dark and shadowy world of sorrow my eyes traveled around the little garden and I saw that even in the shadows, there were beautiful things growing.  And there, out of the darkness of a deep mound of mulch and wood chips, sprouts were forcing their way into the light.  I looked again at the glorious, red flowering tree and beneath it I notice a lush carpet of red petals that litter the ground. A royal carpet. It will now turn to fertile soil and thus will bloom again.  There is even beauty in death. I am no longer sad.