In my yard this is the year of the rose and the year of the pea. The roses--pale pink, dark pink, white--are tiny dance dresses; the bushes, wet and heavy after last night's storms, toss their long hair into the grass.

And the peavines, the acrobats of the garden--dense with supple leaf and flower, pods fattening, tendrils trembling like spiderwebs in a doorway . . . last night, our first taste, like eating a bowl of metaphor: the story of green, say, or the smiles of babies, or the sweetest Supremes song you know.