Queens Wreath Louis in The garden
Queens Wreath
Louis in the Garden
A box wet from the fog, filled with garden plants was at my front door. I got home late and it was already dark. The silver moon hung above the San Francisco bay still blue, but darkening to indigo with the night. As I picked up the box I immediately could smell the Night Blooming Jasmine (Cestrum Nocturnum) and next to that Chocolate Cosmos flowers burgundy black color and rich cocoa smell, Epiphyllum oxypetalum (Queen of the Night) a Dragon Cactus that blooms one night a year, Brugmansia (Angel’s Trumpet) the irony not lost on me, Moonflower (Ipomoea alba) starter plants ready for potting up. The large black Hellebore Niger’s flowers were profuse.
The tags read Smith and Hawkin Mill Valley 1984 Lovell and Corte Madera Avenue. how could that be I wondered as the tags were wooden and the ink looked fresh. No note, but I already knew.
Once inside I took the box to my small walled city garden, in the shadows I saw him touching the leaves of the Queens Wreath vine, sandpaper to the touch not what one would expect. I opened the glass door and said “Good Evening thanks for the great plants how fun”
Louis In My Garden
Smiling, tonight he could pass for a techie hipster. Jeans, boots but what looked like a japanese embroidered shirt.
There is a frailty to Louis that is at once magnetic and empathetic simultaneously.
I put the plants down and asked about the 1984 tags, but he did not answer he just smiled and gave me some kind of time travel wink.
We walked inside my parlor. He sat in my favorite chair, the velvet wingback, he looked intently at my interiors. Matchstick Blinds, Velvet Drapes and Velvet Tuxedo Couches thick turkish rugs, it takes layers and layers to feel warm after 10 straight days of fog. my Easel and Artwork everywhere and the music corner studio where I had not touched anything since ‘The Lion’ was here.
We talked about the Queens Wreath vine, the vibrant purple flowers he asked how it survived the northern california winters “I trim it down and put it in the windowsill in October then back out in April”.
He loved this “You are stubborn to get your way with that plant, we are the same that way” We talked for hours I know nothing of Louisiana and Alabama but Florida has been good to me and we both agreed that the keys were like a place out of time. he told me about the humidity, the music, the nights when the full moon over the pontchartrain could make your heart ache and you dont even know why
He asked me question after question about my time living in the desert. I talked of the nights in Tesuque, New Mexico how the night stars are in your face. The drive from Santa Fe to Scottsdale through the Saguaro’s plunging down from Holbrook and he loved every word.
When he got up to leave he reached out and touched my neck where the bite had been and shook his head “He is more powerful than you think and he can hear every word of this conversation be careful” ‘Has He been in your Dreams?’ He was suddenly concerned.
“No” I said because it was the truth. My nights since my encounter had been restful and uneventful. Louis looked relieved “He likes you because you can make Him famous again”
“I get it. I said “thanks for the plants….” But he was already gone into the night.