Not by accident

A meditation on gardening, goodwill, and what’s best about us. 05.28.25

I live in a neighborhood of gardeners,
where yards bloom and sway all year long —

from swaths of spring tulips, summer rudbeckia
and autumn’s blazing flash of zinnias
to the rattle of spent indigo seed pods in the wind
and the dry rustle of coneflower heads
rising black and spiky from the snow.

A new beauty has entered my awareness this year:
in a given block, several lots
have the same unusual plants making a show, like

those tangerine azaleas you can hardly believe
belong in this frosty zone, and
Korean lilacs with their fine fragrant petals,

peonies with blooms the size of bowls,
all the same shocking shade of cabernet
that holds a velvety sheen in the sunlight,
like the warm flank of a black cat,

front lawns of creeping red thyme and clover
that offer feasts for weary bees,

heirloom raspberries that stain sweet and blood-red,
and ramping walls of cinnamon sunflowers,
somehow saved through generations.

We struggle to reach each other these days, I know.
It’s an ache I sometimes feel in my chest.
My tired heart is constantly scanning for evidence
that it’s not too late for us.

There is a warming comfort, then, to the idea
that these plants — just strange enough to stand out —
could not have all appeared by chance on the same block.

People had to stop, look, exclaim.
They had to speak across hedges and fences,
out on sunny sidewalks while dogs sniffed and waited,
to learn the names and places
where they, too, could find
this flower,
this tree,
this grass,
this winsome shrub
that so delighted the passer-by.

Even strangers would have to say something like,
I love your garden.
You’ve done such a beautiful job with your yard.
What is that flower? It smells like honey
and reminds me of my grandmother.

And the homeowner,
proud in her sunhat and dirt-smudged arms,
would have to say something like,
Why thank you.
I found those at a plant sale three years ago —
aren’t they magical? I’m about to divide them.
Would you like some?

Something real would have to pass between them —
a clod of earth, the thin threads of thirsty roots,
parting words of advice, a sense that they’ve shared
what’s still unbroken and best about us all.

So in my complicated city,
there it is: a living sign
that we spoke kindness to each other,
that we shared generously,
that we understood there is enough beauty to go around,
that in each bouquet we gather through the ripe months,
there are common thoughts,
petals and fragrances and foliage

that tell the story of our longing to connect.