Will

Yet another lesson from the garden

I poke around in the garden from time to time, sometimes I think, merely to challenge Nature. Stupid me.
She has injected in each being, a will that is difficult to overcome or defeat. The will to live.
Each winter perennials hibernate, safe in the knowledge that the cycle of seasons is an ultimate truth and spring is mere months away.
As spring approaches, I hear the sighs of the brown earth below the snow, ready to awaken. I swear by all logic I have imbibed in my years on earth, that given the hard, long winter this year, garden casualties will be high. Especially since last fall I had very enthusiastically chopped down my perennials.
Especially the Weigela. The few branches I'd left behind were gnawed away by starving rabbits who'd wandered into the garden, looking for bits to sustain them.
No. Nature really doesn't want these plants to survive.
Now I sit, in the dying sun of a lazy summer afternoon. Solstice had wandered in. Cottonwood seeds ride wind isotherms lazily, their white fluff shining in the sun.
I can almost hear the rabbit eaten Weigela plants, now in full bloom, laugh at me. This year the rose colored flowers, more prolific than before, danced happily in mockery.
And I thought they would all die.

Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
"The will to live, my dear lady," they say,"is stronger than the ease of giving in. Its not a choice. It's a duty."


Live, they said. Not exist. Not survive. Live.
Now that's a lesson for me right there.