At the Berkshire Garden

 
 

Morning opened in Albany -

the city stretching itself awake,

lights blinking off along the Hudson,

a heron lifting from the shallows.

Coffee steamed the car’s small interior

as we turned east,

driving into fields the color of brass,

past towns still deciding what day it was,

past cider stands and pumpkins,

church steeples sharp against

an October sky rinsed clean.

The hills rose slowly,

like breath taken after prayer.

And then we were there -

the Berkshire Botanical Garden,

waiting without effort,

sunlit and open.

A wooden gate.

Lilac in the air.

Birdsong stitched through hedges and stone.

Paths of gravel and grass wandered

as if they had nowhere else to be.

The greenhouse caught the light and kept it.

Trellises leaned into ivy’s patient grip.

Benches, worn smooth by years of pausing,

asked nothing.

We walked among peonies

loosening their heavy dresses,

foxglove lifting its spires,

asters darkening toward night.

The Steady One moved slowly beside me -

attentive to ferns,

to bees working the day’s small miracles.

She sees not just bloom,

but being.

At the pond - my favorite place -

the world finally hushed.

Water held the sky

without argument.

Pines stood above it,

green and unpersuaded by autumn.

Along the bank,

wildflowers lingered -

yellow, pink, a trace of lavender -

the last clear notes before frost.

Lilies floated like thoughts

I’d meant to finish.

We rested beneath the arbor,

vines leaning close.

Everything moved just enough -

a ripple,

a leaf letting go,

wind threading the cattails.

Time, once impatient,

slipped its watch into a pocket.

Here, the air felt older,

as if it remembered

every careful step.

Light slowed.

What settled wasn’t silence,

but attention -

the garden listening,

and us, finally quiet enough

to hear.

We never rush our leaving.

The gift isn’t the rose alone,

but how, in this held stillness,

we recognize ourselves.

When I stand, the path curves back -

toward the car,

toward towns and errands and noise.

But I carry the pond with me:

trees doubled in water,

petals scattered like blessings,

a calm that feels less like peace

than permission.

Even now I think of it -

that early fall day,

that living hush -

and remember how beautiful it is

to simply be here.

GBS

2024