I miss . . .

I miss--
the midwinter browsing through magazine fields of slick pictured blossoms, so many blossoms and no weeds. I miss the comparing of flowering dates, of heights, of colors and shapes, and then the mental selecting atop an impressionist vision of cottage gardens, vibrant and blurred like the first inkling of a story or painting.

And I miss
the grubby, prosaic outworking of the dream--the curves grown straight, the lush grown stubby, the soldiering lines of dusty leaves topped by tender color--
less sublime, more real,
alive.