That song, so beautifully performed by Alabama, brings a picture to my mind of a smiling face lined with age, and sparkling blue eyes wise with years of life and love. My Great Aunt Sadie has been gone many years, but I can hear her voice as clearly as if she were in the room with me. She was a very special and courageous lady, and if I ever were to choose someone to be my guardian angel, she would be at the top of my list.

Her garden was a magical place, wound through with shaded walks and hidden delights, and the girl I was still roams there in my memory. Gardens, to her, were as necessary as breathing, and her love of gardening seems to have rubbed off on all of us girls to some extent. No garden of mine has ever achieved the same magic, but whether I am digging the foundations of a new bed, or uprooting the seeming ever-present quack-grass from amongst the irises, I always feel very close to her there.

My seasons as a gardener here are coming to an end, and with sadness as we divide the contents of our hearth and home, so, too, the pots and shovels, the plant stands and tools all must be catalogued and claimed - some few to come away with me, most to remain. Some of the angels that inhabit this garden must stay, for they are of this place, but some are mine - my angels and my memories - and they shall depart this place with me.

So here is my hub, combining two of my favorite things, gardening and writing verse, in tribute to the many garden and guardian Angels I have known.

The angels of this season seem a tad timid this year. They have been flirting with us for months now, holding out the promise of warmth and unfolding buds only to blow cold again on our hopes.

The sparrows have returned to the apple tree. The grass has shed its blanket of chilly white. The Sand Hill cranes have serenaded us from dizzying heights as they soared overhead on their way north.

Still, the winds chill and bite. Still, the nights bring Jack Frost nipping and pinching any tender shoot foolish enough to show its head. We are more than ready for winter to end. There, I have said the dreaded "W" word - as if saying it would curse us with it for another long month.

Only the lowly violas, hardy perennial visitors that they are, have dared to show their faces. The asparagus sulks just below the surface, unwilling to climb into the light, and the leaves on the burr oak at the bottom of the garden are yet tight-furled in their buds.

"Soon," whispers the errant breeze as it sighs past my door. "Have faith," its warm breath seems to murmur as it caresses the still bare branches of the currant bushes. The large-eared rabbit that shares our yard pauses in his search for new shoots. His coat has more than half turned to his summer camouflage. He flicks one ear as if to say, "Patience, gardener. There will soon be work enough for you."

Well, if my angels are content to wait, so must I be too, but it has been a long winter this year, and I so want to be out in my garden.

Cruel Winter's blast has shook the trees,

And seared the ground with icy breath;

Now yearning long for respite, I

See Angels dancing down the path.

Sweet kiss of Spring - they print the soil

And where they step the crocus blooms;

Soon, swaying gently, stem and leaf

Coaxed out to play...

A sea-foam froth in wind-tossed the trees

Makes promise of a fruitful year,

And songsters' nests in sheltering bough

Announce returning summer's near.

This summer is particularly sad for I must say goodbye to many friends. The sparrows chatter busily in the old apple tree and keep us busy supplying seed to the bird feeders. I see two roses have not survived the winter's tyranny, and must be removed to make way for their hopefully sturdier replacements.

Actually, it is the garden that must make its goodbyes to me, as I am the one who will be soon gone. Oh, I have stored up pictures and memories in plenty - enough to last me several lifetimes were I to recall them one by one.

I need my garden angels more than ever this summer. I have moved away and left many places and many friends behind before now. This move should be no different from any other time I closed the door on one chapter of my life to begin anew...but no. This time it is different. This time I am leaving so much more than a place. This time I am leaving my home.

I cannot take my garden with me and so, some angels must remain, and part of my self will remain with them. Together they and that part of me that stays will watch over this home and all who dwell herein.

Some shall go with me, though - those gentler folk from former days, old friends now. I shall turn my footsteps down another path, not knowing what lies farther on, but always knowing i am not alone. Wherever a flower breathes its scent upon the breeze, wherever there is cool grass to lie on or a tree to lend its shade, I will find my angels there.

The rose that should have breathed your name,

The winter's harshness, thoughtless, claimed;

And my own heart once lodged within

Now frozen too, must soon away;

No angels beckon from the paths;

Though verdant, all seems sere and bare;

The songbirds' chorus silent falls

And rapture drowns in silent tears

My garden angels softly weep

For love undone and fancy flown;

No careful hands the soil to tend,

No careful hearts the breach can mend

But onward then, to unknown shores

Shall I and they together ply;

And storms now weathered, there abide,

And gardens find...and Gardens find.