In the Heaven of Flowers

"I must have flowers, always, always." Claude Monet

Went to the Plant Works in Felton today for the first time since my mother and sister died. How she loved flowers, though hers was not the ragtag gypsy garden that I have--I plant for wild color, she planted for uniformity, though everything she grew became exquisite, especially her roses, like colorful silk skirts open to the wind and sun. I grew up with roses everywhere: in vases, on porcelain lampshades, printed on my clothes. on bedspreads and tablecloths, the perfume in her garden swoonable in its intensity. I plant roses for their scent now: Bella Roma, Gertrude Jekyll, Angel Face, Mr. Lincoln, Elena, Dreamweaver, save the petals, cook them into rose petal jelly in the autumn, the jelly a soft, soft pink. The mouth fills with roses touched ever-so-delicately with lemon, in one bite. The jar has to be used up quickly, the sweetness does not last.

I walk along green-shaded rows of plants, every leaf like a hand reaching for the sun, dumb and so grateful. My heart knows the planet is ill, but the leaves still reach, still give me the most basic of hopes. My sister is ash now, my mother has gone to bone-white, wrapped in rags of a beaded dress. I turn down the path that is all roses in black buckets, too tempting for this day. I could take a truckload home.

I buy salvia the color of pink paint thinned again and again with water. Each flower is perfectly shaped for the hummingbird's inquisitive needle. A miniature fuschia for my shady deck; my mother had fake fuschias in a wicker basket, same colors of red and purple. I touch a plant called "dead nettle," the name evoking a shiver, wonder if I will feel the sting anyway (I don't). In England, it is called "Archangel." I see the blood threads lining the petals of abutilon, the delphinium's cupped leaves like ragged-edged plates, coral bells, poppies always on the verge of losing their petals, like shameless hussies.

How goes the heart today, the healing from my losses. Blooming again, blooming.