Gardens Are Immortal By Asha Gatland
I left you in your garden so you could find your way back. Gardens are immortal, you said, and when first death came for you It seemed to me only temporary. I watched calmly as your hair, once soft with nurture, turned brittle as an autumn leaf. I watched it fall. Once while you were sleeping, I placed a vase of roses at your beside, let their sweetness evade the sour scents of medicine, debility and hospital sheets. And while you slept, and breath passed through you in an uneasy whisper, I saw on your face lines in bark, traces to places, a thousand stories you had left to tell me – But each hour it seemed, they would water your silence with medicines white and pink through the mouth of a thick yellow tube.
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