From The House of Edward

Without Sight

It was the gardenias who woke me this morning. 

Drifting deep inside my dream, their sweet fragrance took gentle hold of my hand and led me away from a land where the trees were dressed in leaves of blue and robed choirs of border collies sang sea shanties in Gaelic.   

The gardenias brought me back to my feather bed and quietly returned to their vase on the table.  But they could entice me to open my eyes,  for my other senses were telling a story of Spring in languages so lyrical I needed no sight to clarify or embellish their beautiful tale.

The roses that gallivant up over my window sent waves of sweet perfume into my room. I could see them clearly in my mind, a pink ballgown of Spring.

Cut only last night and placed in a majolica bowl on a table in the hallway, the magnolia blossom baptized every room with the clean, fresh aroma of lemons.  The bouquet reached my bedroom and I saw white dresses in sunlight.

I heard the faint sound of the robins as they splashed about in the birdbath, the hydrangea blooms gently shaking as each red-breasted bird hopped a bit closer, waiting his turn to dive in.  I could make them out perfectly from behind my closed lids.

Off in the distance, the faint roar of a lawn mower, from an early rising neighbor keen to outwit the heat of the day -  as visible to me as a painting.

A soft breeze played a vernal melody on the windchimes at the window and Edward sighed a contented sigh.

I could have been Frodo awakening in Rivendell, or Princess Aurora in her tower of stone. 

 But then, down the hallway, came the incense of morning, a cologne of a much different kind.  An invigorating smell, calling out to me from the world of schedules and lists, of tasks I must finish, and tasks yet to start.  

Black coffee.
  As only The Songwriter makes.  

My eyes popped open. 

I saw the morning sun had painted the bedroom with brushes dipped in pink and in gold. 

I saw Edward’s happy, smiling face.

  I bounded out of bed.