As a child, Jehan would spend hours in his parents’ garden. Any chance he got, he would trail after the gardener, placing earthworms out of harm of the trowel that pulled up weeds, and collecting rocks that became bright red or green under the shower of the watering can. His parents shook their heads at the mud clinging to the soles of his shoes, and the grime under his fingernails. The gardener was M. Merle, a kind but elderly man. He looked forward to late afternoon, when Jehan finished his lessons and raced outside and delivered to him a hug and an enthusiastic lecture on whatever subject his tutor had enthralled him most with that day. Truth be told, Jehan reminded the M. Merle of his younger self, with all that wonder and excitement, and if there is anything the old love to be reminded of, it is of their younger self.
When Jehan was ten, M. Merle allotted a small corner of the garden for him to keep. He chose his plants expertly, based on the brightness of their petals and what butterflies they attracted. Soon after the soil thawed in early spring, he sowed seeds of lavender and chrysanthemum and other bright flowers in pots and stored them in the greenhouse, checking in every day to water them. He would sing to them too, or bring his flute and play a little ditty. Some of them grew, and he was elated. Some of them didn’t, and he worried he’d done something to harm them. Some years later, he would content himself with this: some flowers are far too comfortable under the earth and no amount of coaxing would change that. In the end, a flower would only grow if it wanted to grow.
He arranged them himself, planted them himself, and tended to them every day.
(Although, Jehan realized as he grew older, the gardener likely replanted the begonias once or twice in his absence, from the pots he cultivated year-round in the greenhouse.)
As Jehan passed from a child into a young man, he found himself settling more and more into the free spirited whims that tended to capture poets of that age. In autumn, he collected the seeds of wildflowers in tins smaller than his palm. In spring, he would plant them, and for the most part leave them unmanaged, save to pull weeds or give water. By summer, they sprung from the soil, bold and rebellious. They boasted their grandiose petals like kings who strutted in fine waistcoats.
And yet - one summer, a sudden and dreadful storm blew in mid-July. Jehan’s garden, flora in full swing, had been ruined. He grieved that summer, for the lost flowers. For the lost time but mostly for the lost life. One moment it had been truer than the oracles at Delphi. The next - gone. As if they’d never lived.
Poets live with obsessions. That is the fact of the matter. Shakespeare’s was love. Marlowe’s was destruction. Jehan’s was existence. Existence in and of itself - this is what he wrote. Existence - he cherished it closer to his heart than he did any person or thing. To be - that was, for him, the answer. He shuddered when reminded of its fragility. But, poets must embrace discomfort as much as their fascinations. It was macabre, the way that worked. One cannot write about what they adore without thinking of what they dread. This is what his literature professor told him in his first year of university. To love something is to hate another. And the more Jehan looked for it, the more he recognized it. He loved the flora but hated the beetles. Loved to analyze but dreaded writing it down. Loved rhythms, but abhorred repetitions.
Loved existence and feared death.
When he was nineteen, Jehan began renting an apartment near his university. It had a small balcony, and just enough room to keep planters. He filled them with ivy and celosia. As for wildflowers - he took to long walks in untamed fields. Woke early to watch the sunrise laying on his back in a meadow. A bed of grass; an orchestra of songbirds.
One evening in early spring, news arrived that the M. Merle had passed quietly the previous night. He took a week from his classes and attended the funeral on a Saturday morning. When he returned, he visited his literature professor during office hours, only planning to ask what he'd missed. When no one else was there, his professor shut the door and asked what was wrong. And Jehan cried for the death of his friend the gardener.
Somewhere during this time, he mentioned the garden he would plant as a child. The professor nodded solemnly as he spoke of the butterflies he would see, and the wisdom the M. Merle passed along.
"To be sure," he said when he felt a fragile sort of calm, "my parents love me, and I love them, but their love fostered itself in disapproval, and M. Merle? I learned so much from him. My father would have said, 'don't plant a sunflower in the shade,' but M. Merle would have said, 'the sunflower greatly needs the sun to live.'
"Through this, I learned it was best to inquire, not to accept. But while one can inquire all they like about life, and discover all they like about life, death only throws your questions back at you. Believe what you will - "
"Forgive me, but do you fear God, Jean?"
Jehan blinked. "I love God." He paused, thinking the professor would continue with his thoughts, but when the silence stretched on, he continued, "In my heart, I believe M. Merle has found heaven, but what the heart believes and what the head thinks… at certain points, they misalign. I begin to think - was he ever alive? How can anything be proved real if it is not current?"
"Well, memories, of course."
"The human mind is fickle. Philosophers long before us have declared this."
"They have also declared the unreliable nature of the senses." The professor fixed him with a steady gaze. "Jean, understand that these thoughts are normal in the realms of grief. Make no mistake, they will take time to return to usual, but they will return. In the meantime, it may help to turn to poets and philosophers who grappled with the same questions you ask yourself."
He stood from his chair and made for the bookshelf along the far wall. Jehan had always been envious of the collection, and had always gaped at the thought that this must only be part of it - for who would keep all their books at work? And yet, he almost protested as the professor ran old hands along old volumes, and took one from its spot. It was thin, and its red binding had once been beautiful. Now the professor held it, spine broken and cover fraying, before Jehan.
"Well," he said after a moment, "you can borrow it."
Jehan took it gingerly with both hands, and stared at the cover. After a moment, he said, "I keep a garden on my balcony. Not at all like the one at home, but…" but every time he watered those plants he thought of his friend. His childhood. The junior philosophies he concocted from earth and ancient treatises like the one he held now. "Thank you, monsieur."
The professor nodded with a smile. Here, Jehan sensed the conversation had drawn to a close, and so he thanked the professor once again, and made to leave. The wind outside was cool with the chill of winter as Jehan walked home. He breathed a sigh of relief when he was finally out of it, and almost immediately went to light the fireplace.
From here, he noted the late afternoon sunlight and the warmth that came with it. Turned to the small clay pots that cluttered the kitchen countertop, and found that the sprouts from before the funeral had shrivelled up. And then he dug around for the box he kept his seeds in. Brought each pot to the kitchen table, and replanted them all.
After, when the pots resumed their stations on the counter, he opened one window a crack, and settled on his armchair with the professor’s book. For a moment, he gazed at one of his houseplants, and then at the book’s cover. On it was the worn inscription Phaedo .
And he read Plato surrounded by the wisdom of Merle.