A Harvest of Reflections: Wisdom for the Soul Through the Seasons

Beginning at the end of one growing season and ending at the beginning of another, Coloradan Matott (My Garden Visits) ruminates in this collection of ""vignettes"" on topics within and without the garden, deftly weaving the two together, each a metaphor for the other, offering lessons in both directions. From a youthful kiss in a hay loft, through his mother's death, his children's wonder and his mother-in-law's green thumb, Matott crystallizes his life's moments and places them, somehow, in the context of the garden. With poems from a small collection by his late uncle, brief examinations (and lovely illustrations by Deborah Chabrian) of such specimens as the red-twigged dogwood, angel's trumpet, rose, dandelion and ""yesterday, today, and tomorrow,"" Matott moves through the gardener's off-season of pumpkins and apples, snowflakes and Christmas trees, baby birds and hyacinths. Lives and relationships move through seasons of their own, and the author's own thoughts mature and ripen, from a gardening father's embarrassment at having to buy pumpkins to make jack-o'-lanterns for his young sons, to a son heeding his deceased mother's message to help his elderly father move through and beyond grief. Matott delivers a collection of warm thoughts for contemplation in the long, cold nights between gardening seasons. Agent, Jacques de Spoelberch. (Oct.)