The wind
The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.
'In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses.'
'I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead.'
'Well then, I'll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.'
the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
'What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?'
-Antonio Machado-
We are given a garden—our one life, our interior landscape, the soul we came here to tend. And at some point, we must face the question: what have we done with it? Have we let it go fallow, allowed its beauty to wither from neglect? Machado's poem is both grief and accountability, the moment we realize that even our withered petals and yellow leaves are still offerings, still part of what we have to give.
