blooming alone

One of the surprises is the flowers in my parents’ front yard. These are the genetically modified flowers – geraniums, begonias, dahlias, impatience, roses, petunias – we all plant. They are on their last bloom. Soon the morning frost will wither them and the hurried winds will rip their petals apart.

In order to snap the pic, I had to hold the stem, because the wind was whipping everything.

It’s interesting to have been here in May when all the fruit-trees were in bloom and my dad and my uncle were planting their gardens. Fast forward four months and the gardens are empty. My uncle still has plants in the ground in his greenhouse. But my dad has pulled all the vegetable plants and turned them into the soil. The only plants left in the garden are escarole. The plant is hardy enough to last well into early winter. And as long as the snowfall is minimal, my parents will eat garden-fresh escarole salads and my mother will make pasta-e-scarola well into December.

The summer days of endless light have given way to cloudy skies and early sunsets. This is the In-between. By late October, there will be snow flurries. (Languid Indian Summer is for the domains south and east of the 49^th parallel.)