sunday walk in the park

celebrating the last day of summer...enjoying an afternoon walk with a friend... through a glorious park in the middle of oklahoma city...filled with soft green green grass... roses blossoming....reds, pinks, whites, peach.... the sun just in the western sky.... illuminating...yellow centered roses.... red velvet peddles.... stopping.... over and over again just to look... absorbing as much as my eyes could soak in.... we walked together.... through the gardens... the cypress trees.... roots emerge as families... of sculptural beings... noticing for the first time the cypress trunks...... shaped almost like fingers...deep crevices showing signs of age.... this park is a little hidden secret...not many ever take time to enjoy... with the exception of the ever so diligent disc golfers.... however they never quite make it to the magical gardens ...where the iris... fall dormant... with names like "black knight" and "eliminator".... a small herb garden....with bushes of lavender, rosemary, sage, coneflower and mint... we stopped and picked a leaf from each...smelling it..rubbing the leaf between our fingers ... releasing the scent...exploding into the air......sharing with one another... passing back and forth each treasure we found... watching him... enjoy each scent... curious as to what it was... i watched him bite the end of a leaf... then describe the flavor... we told each other short meaningless stories... smiling...laughing.... i wanted to touch his face...i wanted to hold his hand.... i watched him....walk aimlessly ....from one flower...to the next... rarely walking side by side... he was always going some direction that seemed to be calling him.... sometimes following him... and others...following my own calling.....never getting too far apart... he was child like... the way he soaked everything in...appreciating the methodically stacked rocks...creating walls...or terracing the hilly landscape...the flowers blooming....the bushes and shrubs...wanting to know what this was or that was...taking time...real time...to smell...the roses... see the colors....appreciate the beauty of the last day of summer....