In my small wild garden, tiny black dots upon red charm. More perfect than the smallest fingernail. Mesmerising seconds into hours. Childhood and time pass in a one inch world of dry earth and sharp green, baby shoots of grass. Delight in danger- red. Body opens by magic. Tiny black gauze spider web wings. Shock of flight. Sky eyes turned upwards into buttercup light dappling my gaze as the ladybird leaves, I wake from my joyful trance as does my son.
Quietly content. I look for the next thing in my garden to contemplate. Then I see the wren and silently point it out to my four-year old son. It is beige, drab, tiny. It's quick movements capture his gaze.
His tongue pokes out left, down splodges brown paint, chocolate button on white paper. He just misses painting the wooden bench. He tries for watery black stick legs. The tiny triangular beak- warps into a heavy-handed square. Black dots for eyes. The blob of a wren, like the small fluffy fidgety chick last year which would not stay to play in his cupped hands, flits and flits, this way and that. (Now a cartoon, stationary on a kitchen wall.)
I point out the garden spiders, busily weaving homes under the bench. He waits eagerly on the grass for flies to be caught and eaten, face on his folded arms. I look at his delicious round face, his frown of concentration, the sun creating a little halo of his blond curls. My heart expands with joy at this little miracle. He falls asleep in the warmth, on the grass. I observe the daily changes and thank god he is so quick to learn sign language. So that he can tell me everything despite me not hearing his voice.
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