Ghosts in the Garden, an excerpt

One day I took my mother to the garden. It was a warmish day, just us. She made her way slowly down the gentlest decline (holding my arm, sometimes touching tree branches), then chose a bench beneath a tree inside the woods. I sat beside her, and between us fell a triangle of sun. A gardener was at work across the path; people walked by. We sat there peacefully, my mother and I, a wedge of yellow sun between us, but otherwise in shadow. We talked of nothing much, and it was good. We said, every once in a while, Remember this? Remember that? We talked about how the branches of one tree reached toward another and formed an arch. We talked about how high vines will climb if they’re rooted in good soil.

Things were blooming in the Asian Woods.

There was so much color in the shadows.

In the wake of my mother's passing, Chanticleer allowed me to place this stone beneath the great katsura trees, in her memory. Doug was the one who fit the stone to the earth, making sure the sun had room.