Late September

September flowers are the honest ones. They don't arrive with spring's whole production — the drama, the pollinators, the show. They come in when the garden has already said its piece and add a quiet sentence at the end. Asters, specifically. Purple, mostly. A few white. Growing where I didn't plant them because asters do what they want. I put them by the wall. They moved to the path. I put them by the path. They colonized the vegetable bed. I'm sixty-two. I mention this because the asters don't care, and I find that comforting. The garden doesn't know I'm older. It responds to what I do, not what I am. If I dig, it gives. If I water, it grows. My knees disagree with kneeling but the soil doesn't know that. My husband died in March, which is a season of beginning and was, for him, the opposite. I planted the asters in April. Not as a memorial. I don't believe in symbolic gardening. I planted them because the bed was empty and I couldn't stand an empty bed in any form. They grew. Obviously. Asters aren't sentimental either. They have their season and they use it. The purple ones flower first. The whites come later, like guests who weren't sure they were invited. October will end them. The first frost, specifically. I'll cut the stems and mulch the bed and the garden will go to sleep and I'll go inside and it will be winter. But that's October's problem. Today is September and the asters are open and the bees are working them with a seriousness that I find instructive. There is still time. There is still sweetness to collect. The frost is coming but it's not here yet.