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TRANSPLANTING ROSEMARY

Tilted over all Winter in her too-small clay pot, and then in early Spring her long slender green-hope branches, tipped with glowing blue flowers, tangled with weeds and debris from the winds of winter, some branches even laying on the ground and overgrown, how bedraggled she was!

So many times throughout the winter I would be out gathering firewood and see her laying in the snow, blown over by the wind, and I'd straighten her up, try to find a wind-sheltered place for her and the pot she was outgrowing despite my carelessness, but each time the winds would soon catch the tips of her long branches and set her over again.

Then came this fine Spring day and we'd both had enough. I got out the tools and dug a generous hole in the best and sunniest corner of the garden, cleared out Rosemary's branches, freed her tangled roots, set her straight upright and firmed her in with her very own soil. How proudly she stood now! Straight up from the ground toward the sky, just as she'd always wanted, every branch a reach of life, her flowers now a bright blue garland in the sun.