Midnight Garden

reprint from March 23, 2007



The full moon shines
with all its might,
drenching my garden
with mystic light...............

L. 11 years old

Flowers such as "Queen of the Night" bloom only in hours of darkness and belong to my sister's midnight garden. They open pale eyes under the light of the moon, when the rest of the world is sleeping. Their perfume is more intoxicating than ordinary flowers for they belong to dream and mystery. One of the night flowers; Cereus greggi blooms only for one midsummer's night each year. The flower exudes its exquisite perfume as night falls, then closes forever with the first touch of dawn. There are people who are like that too; special people who in a unique moment touch us with ephemeral beauty.

two flowers as white as snow said, Princess Haiku

It is a very cool evening in Northern California and these white flowers seemed a perfect expression of that.

snow of a white flower said, Princess Haiku

Princess Shikishi
from Winter: Fifteen Poems


Left on treetops the brocade remains: from my garden, autumn's colors have taken leave.

As I watched winter came: along the edge of a cove where ducks are, thin ice is forming.



In the shower everywhere red leaves fell; now hailstones drop on garden leaves.

Wild winter sky all day now suddenly turns cloudy, sleet slashing aslant as wind vie.



On the mat my midnight sleeves lucid, first snow white on the hillside pines.

The sky as a flock rises grows snowy, lucid dark; in icy bedroom a wood duck cries.

Body piercing; the garden fires rises lucidly, up to the frosty night stars in the dawn sky.



Wind of heaven, the maidens cross ice this winter night, sleeves polished by the light of the moon.