My Mother’s Garden

Frequent Photo

For fun, I thought I’d insert something from a novel I’ve been struggling with for years.  A little paragraph might as well see some daylight—maybe I’ll get inspired to go back and fix its problems:

A shallow little creek trailed slowly beside the road, its banks lush with growing things. Most plants were natives but some were feral creatures which escaped from settlers’ gardens. One of the flowers, a tall stately foxglove, stood like a stiff green butler, holding out its lavender and white lace mittens for small creatures to slip small paws into.    I knew old-time settlers had sometimes used the flowers as medicine and  I was tempted to put an exploring finger inside one slender hollow and twirl out some digitalis to lick off but country kids had been taught early to keep their hands away from such forbidden dangers and even the thought of putting my finger near the tantalizing creatures caused cautionary tales to start humming through my head and thrumming through my fingertips.