Solitary, after all, were the gardener

Spring comes early. Daffodils are showing, and the tulip beds in the botanic gardens are pointed with green, bare earth a week ago. From our high window, across the valley, the rhododendrons are out.

Two years ago I couldn't have named a rhododendron. I had only read the word and seen the tree. I take pleasure in the way my botanical knowledge is slowly filling in. Being employed as an odd job gardener, conversations with relatives, the years when my partner and I would take flowers from the roadside to give each other. Unstudied accumulation, giving density to the seasons. I wonder what the average age at which someone learns to recognise an oak leaf is, in this country? Or a kauri? Will there come a year where I can identify most of the trees I see from this window, or will I have learned another dozen by then, but forgotten rhododendrons?


Name

Solitary, after all, were the gardener,
But for the accompaniment of words.

In this my matutinal seclusion
Sights, sounds, and scents, all, all agree to please.
Comely the smile of all well-natured subjects,
Goodly the smell of wholesome, up-turned soil.
Lovely above all is this silence –
But the silence is vibrant with words.

They murmur in the distance like bees,
They whisper in the rustle of the trees,
Then springs one, instant to be heard,
Sings on my shoulder like a bird.


Ursula Bethell