geraniums ovenbird He died three days shy of his ninetieth birthday, a bookmark sitting halfway through a book he had read many times before, his garden on its way to dormancy. In the greenhouse he had started the geranium seeds, and though he was not there to tend them, they found the will to root themselves to this world. His children watered this last planting and watched the final act of their father’s hands grow into something leafy and furred. Today his son stood at a podium in a church and said beautiful things about the man who raised him. “He was a good man,” he said. “He didn’t try to be good, he WAS good.” And grief entered the room quietly from the back and took a seat in the furthest pew and listened to us sing “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” We were all sent home with a potted geranium. I picked one that hadn’t bloomed yet, one with a story still clenched in its fists. 260131 what's it to you? who go blather from