Flowers in the Garden

I don’t really know my flowers,

just a name on the tag at the garden center

where I bought them, bee balm and cat mint, and some-

thing else, red flowers, Phlox(?), maybe (?), perhaps,

and hyacinth, pink and white, because I wanted

some color among the trees to attract the bees,

do my part for hearth and home and nature’s way,

the beauty of God’s green earth, save the environment,

etc.; at least that’s what I told everyone.

In reality, I just wanted their beauty for myself,

selfishly, something beautiful in my own life.

So I planted them per the instructions and watered them,

good soil and fertilizer, partial sun, and saw them grow,

coming back year after year, perennially returning,

some taking a little extra care, a little more TLC.

Their reds and pinks and yellows, their periwinkle and purple

and lilac draw the bees to them, also the butterflies,

and me, too, drawn to their flowers and sweet smell,

if not to their pollen and nectar, something to care about,

care for, watering and weeding, pruning and trimming,

even cutting them way back at the end of the season

before the snow arrives and buries them below the drifts

of wind-blown snow from across the yard and the swirling

snow off the lake, knowing for certain they’ll return

in spring’s warming, bloom again in the summer months to follow, 

beauty returned to the fallen and the fallow of winter’s cold,

something to look forward to in the changing of the seasons.