Walk in the Garden

The old lady thought about the notary public, his long clean shaven face. He had a tidy appearance and comely hands, levigated by disuse – that was her sardonic sense of things. She then looked at her fingers, stained by the ink of the newspaper. A nonpareil feeling mounted as she came upon a page where a photograph, prone to desaturation in such publications, nearly leaped out of its confines. The face to the extreme right was of someone she recognized, yet seen in a different context, identification was troublesome and proffered only effete assurances. The search of her memory seemed to her like a painful jarring of a mechanized shutter, locking in to different locations with the surfeit of a clouded lens. Only the sight of a tropicbird refocused her mind, and she decided to take a walk in the garden under the protean clouds.



nasturtium



trumpet



limestone



air plant



wild flower



nasturtium



protean clouds



Astrophytum asterias

Peregrina.

By the fish pond, near the cement steps, was an old bench of cedar planks, a carpet of dried leaves clinging to the rusted metal legs like some gremlins whirled in a spell, and on it sat a woman, Madame Sosostris, an old lady with a strict, angular face.

I wondered if she would stay or continue to gaze distractedly at the restless coral glitter of the Peregrina. Did the color indelicately cross a threshold in her mind and illuminate a forlorn memory or was it another specious daydream, the kind she’d been used to having on days when her arthritis dominated?

Peregrina - Jatropha integerrima



Little dove makes her nest in a bunya-bunya tree. These Australian trees have extremely sharp spines, keeping predators at bay.



Gladiola.



Canna Lily.



Wildflower.



Salmon Geranium.



Peachy Peaches.