Gold Grey

Today was unbearable- so oppressively hot! I spent the entire morning stretching to a very late afternoon walking amongst plants, shrubs, vines, trees, Lilly pads, in an abundance of green intermixed with brilliant neons, within short stretches of cool blue to once again exposed under blinding, scorching sky. My friend and I were visiting a large, fantastic, exuberant tropical nursery - and doing what we like best - looking at all kinds of plants for our gardens. In defiance of the light, heat, we roamed sweating, sweltering, singeing and yet greedy - to see more, smell more, buy more. Our heads were full of dreams of our transformed gardens, visions of paradise. We returned home with the car packed, spilling plants, shrubs in tiny containers.

I got to work almost immediately. The sky was getting ominously dark - the air completely still; a storm was about to break and I had a lot to do. The earth needed to be dug, pots to be emptied, saplings to be planted into the garden - before the rains hit. Barely half an hour into the project, the first thunder cracked, lightning lit a yet bright grey sky. The rains started in a rush - no gentle prelude, no light drizzle. Rains fell like big coins polka dotting the road, dark black on shiny grey. I continued working, faster, happier than I had been in a longest while. The rain pelted my back even as I was enveloped in a heady aroma of the earth smell, a feel of radiating heat from ground, and cold deluge from above. I worked silently and fast, grinning within. My son called out from inside, out of concern - I just smiled, laughed at this foolish joy of choosing to be out in this ridiculous downpour.

When I was done and showered and changed, I sat at my window. The whole world was bathed in a gold light - a late evening, dark grey light of antique gold, burnished to a dull, luminous, sheer sheen. The new greens were hung with crystal drops, in lines and rows, all tremulous, transparent, reflecting the golden light, lit also from inside. My lotus garden and the new Lilly pad danced to the rainy rhythm, throwing off sparks of water light to this beat. Far off a Koel sang as the rain slowed, the light waned, and I turned away, towards my home - all my dark dispelled, all the grey covered with gold.