My Zen Garden

This is a page I created for our Sketchbook Group Journal Round Robin.  Theme .. My Zen Garden.  Just goes to show that no two Zen Gardens look the same ... we're all seeking our own Zen.  I wrote the text while on one of my daily walks with my pup through my Zen garden.

This is my Zen Garden ..

Where bamboo has been replaced by towering pines

Where the silence is broken not by chimes,

but by the songs of birds playing in the trees

occasionally jumping off to hang on the breeze

as it caresses the forest

It is here that the sand is raked by the treads of boots

belonging to hikers who have gone before me

punctuated by the footprints of animals

who so graciously share their home.

Here the alligator juniper serves as nature’s garden statue.

Their long, sprawling branches creating interesting shapes and angles

framing the beauty that lies just beyond.

Their rough patterned bark

complimenting the red, waxy bark of the nearby Manzanita.

Mystery is provided by the dark canyon,

tangled with the downed trees that succumbed

to the weight of last winter’s snow,

beckoning me to explore its depths each time I pass.

This is where I come to marvel at the calm beauty,

to see that which I missed each time before,

to re-group,

to quiet my thoughts or silence them altogether,

to simply appreciate all that surrounds me.

This is my Zen Garden.