Little Musings

Picture I took of some sunbabies and peep the heart cloud

Every day I walk to 16th and south to see the wild city garden that grows in a 5 ft. wide, city-block-long crevice space – in between the brick wall of the parking garage and a sling of tiny row homes all packed together like cakes in a glass case. I am not sure who keeps the garden, perhaps the row home owners, but somehow the not knowing is part of the allure. This little slice of magic. In the summer it throbs and drips with color: lavender rose of Sharon, hot pink and orange sherbet hibiscus, full-bushy-blushing pale pink peonies, rainbow colored zinnias, simple Shasta daisies, poker pineapple lilies, blood red dahlias, magenta ruffled irises, violet lily of the Nile, stiff and proud orange gladiolus, light coral trumpet-looking things I don’t know the name of, fluffy aslan marigolds, pure white anemones with polar bear black pupils – all of it grows here, side by side. Like the city itself, filled with a Thai restaurant here, an Italian pizza place there, the Israeli bakery and the Indian food cart all happily coexisting as if the continents never divided anyway. The bees buzz in between the flowers, who, if not for some careful gardener’s hands, would never have known the taste of hydrangea so close to frangipani. But what I come for every day is the water lily. It floats in a small man-made pond, no larger than the width of an arm chair. It peaks its lemon yellow face out of its white flame petals as if to say to me, “hello. I have been waiting for you.” And I smile back and whisper, “thank you for blooming here. Through the soil. In the water. In the city. On this street. In my eyes.”