His Life and the Garden

On that day, the phone first rang at nine a.m., then rang again fifteen minutes later. His daughter gave his wife the news. The shock…then silence… followed by mixed emotions. She was oh so very young. The mirror in the room keeps displaying his visage; the lines, the hair thinning at the top. Today he will wear his new jeans, and his Cat Stevens t-shirt, and put some styling jell in his hair. On the mantle, the faded photo, conceiving memories of a party long ago. Everyone younger, most living, many smiling, laughing, appearing joyous. Every morning, pain in his shoulder. Throughout the night, numbness in most of the fingers of his right hand. Heat or ice for his Achilles’ tendon? (The doctor had called it tendinitis) In the afternoon, some bread baking, or perhaps a pizza; a newly found hobby suggested by the pandemic. On his desk, an almost finished poem, about an abusive father and husband, and a fire in a home on Colonial Street, in the city of Montreal. Beside it, another poem … just started. Beautiful and magical butterflies, and thoughts of revenge, and murder. And from his window … a garden. Among the vegetation, a vibrant green pepper plant, alive and flourishing. Next to it, another plant, cabbages visible, but most of its leaves eaten by the caterpillars.