Basil and the Bees

You accuse:

I am a lazy gardener

“For the basil flowers go untrimmed

As winter comes near”

They will shrivel, you say

In the months of misty cold;

They will shrink and gnarl

These sacral plants of old

 

But you don’t see autumn’s bees, do you?

In winter’s icy cold deluge

With no more blooms growing new

The basil’s but their last refuge.

 

I decide the flow of life, in my green abode,

For a moments few, the lazy gardener turns a God…

 

Winter arrives in my garden – and the signs are everywhere, With the advent of chilly bitter days, the tomatoes, pumpkin and okra have all withered away. The little beans and peas are the only ones capable to withstand this cold. Naturally there’s not many flowers left.

Except for the holy basil or the tulsi, reminding me of my homeland, and silently teaching me to be as resilient and strong just as the tropical plant itself is putting up a fight in these temperate lands. The plants are full of flowers bursting in shades of pink, purple and white. The tip is though, to trim them, for as soon as the flowers mature and turn to seeds, the plant’s life cycle gets completed and it dries out thereafter, in a way closing their own chapter to make way for the next generation of seeds and saplings. And yet, every time I go near to trim the inflorescence, I see the bees, still striving to extract the last motes of nectar from the only flowers left in the garden. And I stop, to return the next day and stop again.

Am I doing justice to the tulsi? What about the bees?  I will perhaps wait and watch in winter’s wayward weariness and in the meanwhile, keep playing God in my little garden.

20^th May’23