Here I am in my beautiful garden in wet July, in this cool, errant summer. It is always here, like God, like joy, while I pursue my life elsewhere. It is here, and if I sojourn here again I can take it with me when I go. It has changed since last I was here, a week of growth, now the roses have dropped and the buddleia is bursting purple. There are white clouds racing across the blue sky towards the west, towards the hidden sun, and the trees are riffling the breeze. But here, in my gravel garden, the air only moves gently like a well-mannered guest. I will breathe its cool balm with my skin, with my blood. It is the freshness of a new day.

It is so fresh in the garden, fresh after refreshing rain, fresh with early morning light, fresh with the beginning of spring, fresh with the love of a gentle sun. The trees are in that delightful state of being leafed, newly brightly shining green, still small, still testing the air. The spring flowers are drinking in the rain at their roots, drinking in the sun, sitting as still as the Sunday morning. The sky is all blue except for one tiny white wisp of a cloud sailing east which melts into the air as I look. Now we are all blue, we are benign, we are birdsong, we are promise.

The light is awake this morning, sparkling on the close-packed blossom, shining from the new-born leaves, baby green and perfect. It fills the air, it fills the leaves, firming and forming them, calling them to grow, calling them out into this aware air, into this waiting world so that it might be even more beautiful.

The bell has been ringing too often summoning busyness. This is the time I crave the sweetness of silence, to sit at the deep pool and taste its blue waters, to let its stillness seep through me like nightfall.

The day is slow; slowly the clouds float across the blue face of sky, islands in the ocean. Slowly the autumn chill fills the space beneath, a steady presence. There is no wind here, it is still, still and chilled and patient. It slowly filters through my skin, through my breath, until I too am filled with its stillness.