0243 The Second Coming

This first August week, the geraniums are flowering their second flush: they braved last winter, huddled like cabbage stalks so as to be inconspicuous to the meddlesome and sterile fingers of frost, then burst into abundant life, as did the pelargoniums, with a blatant generosity or hymn of praise as if to prove some point we'd overlooked about Creation. Last week, dead-headed like a battlefield, they fell back into themselves, exhausted, as if they wanted a long summer holiday, to last right through to autumn's fall; only, this week, to bear a second coming: yet changed: their petals paler, exquisite, water-coloured like shells fresh from the waves, or the most delicate painted porcelain or Japanese flowers brushed on silk; as if God had fallen in love with His own Creation, seeing it good; and then repainted it with second, subtler coat; and given to the geraniums a second chance to remind us of the love we missed the first time round.