The Forgotten Garden

A rusted gate, half-hinged and sighing,
Whispered welcomes as I wandered through.
Briars tangled in rebellion's art,
Thorns like sentinels of a past I never knew.

The path, once cobbled, now veiled in moss,
Each stone a secret, each crack a scar.
Wild ivy clung to weathered walls,
Like time's steady hand claiming all from afar.

Above, the sun poured honeyed light,
Its fingers caught in a canopy's weave.
Leaves, kaleidoscopes of gold and green,
Danced in the breath of an autumn eve.

I knelt before a bed of withered blooms,
Petals curled like letters unsent.
Marigolds, roses, and violets in shadow,
Their colors ghosted, their fragrance spent.

But there, in the soil—a tremble, a shift—
A shoot of green with its head held low.
I brushed away the blanket of neglect,
Fingers black with the earth’s quiet glow.

Memories unfurled like blossoms at dawn:
A woman’s voice—lilting, warm.
"The roses must breathe, darling," she’d say,
Her laughter a springtime storm.

I could hear her—soft steps on the path,
The snip of shears, the splash of a pail.
Her apron stained with petals and rain,
Her stories tangled with each ivy trail.

I pulled the weeds like unspoken regrets,
Root by root, they yielded with ease.
The air grew sweeter with each breath,
The hum of bees like distant melodies.

Days passed, then weeks—soil on my hands,
Hands that learned the rhythm of care.
Each bloom I coaxed from the slumber of dirt
Felt like rewriting a forgotten prayer.

Violets awoke with their shy purple glow,
Roses unfurled in velvety flame.
Marigolds swayed like lanterns of gold,
And with each bloom, the whispers came.

Her voice grew clear as the garden revived—
Her joy a lark's song at morning's edge.
I’d see her hands in my every motion,
Her breath in the sigh of the wildest hedge.

One day, as the sun slipped behind the trees,
I stood at the center of all I’d restored.
The garden, no longer a thicket of ruin,
Now a kingdom where color soared.

The gate creaked shut with a softer sound,
Not the groan of a weary, forgotten past.
I glanced behind at the glow of the blooms—
Every petal a promise that beauty can last.

Somewhere within the golden hour’s glow,
I heard her again, her voice so near.
“The roses must breathe, darling,” she hummed.
I turned, but there was no one here.

Yet, I smiled—my heart a wild garden grown whole,
Roots entwined with the echoes of old.
Restoration, I’d learned, was not for the flowers,
But for the soul that dares to hold.

- Khushi Kaul