Garden at First Light

Light arrives like a rumor, tentative at first, then insistent. The garden holds its breath— petals still damp with certainty, stems curved toward a sun that hasn't yet learned their names.

Dew catches what the dark couldn't take. Each blade, a small mirror. The roses forget they will wilt. The morning glories remember they will close and open again, forever changing, forever the same.

Something moves beneath the soil. Not quite alive, not quite becoming. The work of roots, the patience of stones, the slow alchemy of rain returning what the flowers borrowed from the earth.