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April 10, 2005
Good Morning, Alex and Maddie
With arms covered in angry scratches and cuts from pruning roses, I stood in the shower this morning, thinking about my garden, but not feeling the sharp sting of soap. The cicadas won’t be back this year and, somehow, I’ll have to keep the deer away.
The spring is here, and I feel the miracle of rebirth. Two days ago, just before the heavy rains returned to New Jersey and my garden, I patiently distributed one-hundred pounds of fertilizer. With the bucket in my arms, refilled every so often from heavy bags, I threw generous handfuls across the budding earth, wanting to call out, nah, chick, chick, chick, chick, the way my grand-aunt did, to her feathered army, in rural Slovakia years ago.
“Good morning, Lady Magnolia. Spring greetings, Lady Plum. Oh, how do you do, Lord Francis. Ciao, Giuseppe.” I greeted my friends on my daily walk. “Be good and grow strong,” I called to the day lilies, bleeding heart, primulas, and forget-me-nots growing vigorously by the fence. “How beautiful you are,” I thought of the golden miniature and tall daffodils in the center flower bed around my Boy. “And you, too, bright pansies and primroses!”
On a late evening walk, long after the skies colored with bright orange streaks, several pairs of bunnies froze in the lawns until I passed by, their dark eyes like shiny buttons in the falling light. This year, I’ve no burrows tucked safely against the window wells, with perhaps fewer cute little bunnies fattening up on my daisies. But the speckled fawns will soon be around, with their white tails flashing in mid-air as they hop away on their spindly long legs. The Canadian geese walk purposefully in pairs by Lake Carnegie. Soon the Tow Path will be covered with fuzzy yellow waddling balls.
My lawn this morning was covered with a carpet of glistening diamonds. Moisture hung from every branch, every stalk. A pair of cardinals hopped excitedly on my wisteria arbor, doing a dance of love around the heavy post that supports the vine. “Good morning, Excellency,” I said. “With your permission, I’ll call Your Lordship Alex,” I said to the fluffy ball of bright red plumage. “And you’ll be Maddie,” I named his shy tawny mate. The pair will stay with me through the year, until their young ones will start their own life. It’ll be fun to watch them.
I hope they don’t fly into my window, wanting to perch on my weeping ficus tree, so huge that its leaves and branches are pasted against the window pane. One cardinal did, a beautiful red bird, and I buried him in soft white flannel cloth, deep into the cold earth, thinking that he may never have had the pleasure of feeding his young ones. A gray stone marks the spot, reminding me of the shortcomings of a church that forbids the joy of conjugal love to its clergy.
Posted by Eva Siroka at April 10, 2005 11:50 AM