Novena

She wakes, and even dishes learn her day, 
For love has tipped the balance of the light; 
The kettle trills, rehearsing songs of night, 
And seconds kneel, obedient, to stay.

No task remains that’s not wanted to do, 
For hope has gilded every common sight; 
A shadow passes… quick… a hinted flight, 
And leaves behind the hush of tinted blue.

She folds the linens slow, not to delay,
But tasting time made amber by the light;
The clock forgets the cruelty of plight,
Its hands now trained to serve her gentle play.

The learned say… as Plato dared to say… 
That love invents the world against the night; 
She smiles, as if she knows that truth as rite, 
And hums a tune that follows through her day.

Her garden calls her forth as if to pray, 
Where roses lean toward each coming night; 
She names them all, the blooms her lost birthright, 
Denied the cradle, flowers gave her play.

These flowers grew where worries never flew.
Now softened by a voice that threads the air;
Across the bridge, through stone and half-seen way,
A flash of wing repeats the shade of blue.

Again the gate… half-hidden knows the way,
Again the dusk adorns him deep in blue;
Again her heart recalls a grief she knew,
Yet finds no sin in joy allowed to bloom.

For love, the god, has sealed a gentler tomb,
Where faith is kept, and sorrow learns its due.

For my sister, 1 January 1968 – 6 October 2025

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She was injured in an accident as a teenager, taking away her ability to have children, which was her biggest dream and desire in life.

But she turned that parental love toward her garden, winning all sort of awards, and with me late mum they even had registered a new species of rose that they developed over many years.

Walking into her garden was almost other-worldly, modelled on the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park… as close to the divine in physicality on earth as my eyes have ever seen, that’s for sure, no doubt at all in that for me.

She got the flu on a Sunday night, and was found passed on the very next morning… autopsy came back, and, yes, just the flu… I thought, “2025, and people can just *die* from the flu?!? WTF kinda BS is that, Creator??”, but we all have our time, don’t we?

I stopped by her old yard this morning right at day-break, about an hour ago. It’s going to be a jungle in that flower garden, no perfect rows, or even planned imperfections, with seeds planted scattered so deliberately as if following an algorithm.

Nope, this year, not planned, but totally uncontrolled and uncontrollable chaos, with flowers of every kind growing everywhere, wherever they like, and, oh, is it going to be more beautiful than ever it has been before, mmhmm, it sure will be, I know it like it’s guaranteed…