The Garden of Heartbeats
By Nicole Escarcena
By Nicole Escarcena
They say that, in a corner no hand has ever drawn,
there lives a garden that cannot be measured by lawn,
for it keeps no acres, no borders nor traces
it beats in heartbeats… and in soul-embracing spaces.
There, flowers are more than colors in bloom;
they hold old secrets, shadows, and gloom.
They breathe emotions, murmur memories,
and in each petal rest a thousand stories.
In that garden lives Quiet Blue Moon,
who hears the secrets the wind won’t tell soon.
Golden Sun, playful, never stays still
he dances with rays like a comet at will.
Deep Violet waits, serene and wise,
guarding tales that brush the sleeping skies.
And Fire Rose, glowing, tender and bright,
ignites the smiles no one dreams at night.
It isn’t a garden like any you’ve known
it is a whisper of the soul, softly grown.
Where the wind sings, where the light brings calm,
where every shadow finds a healing palm.
Shhh… do you hear it?
It’s a heart that never tires,
that beneath the soil dances,
that in every beat releases a whisper of desires.
It beats… and the air begins to sing.
It beats… and silence finds a place to cling.
It beats, spilling colors into the breeze,
beats, releasing fairy-tale scents with ease.
It beats like rainfall kissing a flower,
beats like a song embracing pain with power.
Each thump, a seed learning how to rise;
each echo, a sigh that somehow knows…
that where a heartbeat lives… life goes.
And beyond the gate, I saw him.
A child. Small as a sprout,
tired as a tree that has weathered too many seasons,
and with eyes… filled with winters.
“Hi… I don’t think I belong here,” he whispered.
Fire Rose smiled, her voice warm as tea in cold hands:
“In this garden, even silence has a place to rest…
and every shadow finds its ray of sun.”
“I’m not like the others,” he said.
“My words stumble, my thoughts fly so high
that sometimes I lose myself…
and other times, the world loses me.”
Deep Violet bowed, her shimmering petals soft with knowing:
“Here, we never want flowers to look the same.
Here, each one invents its own way to bloom,
even if its roots reach toward unexpected rooms.”
“In other places they say I’m… too much.”
Blue Moon stepped closer, voice like a gentle tide:
“Too much of you… is exactly what this garden needs to breathe, to sing, to remember.”
Golden Sun leaped, lighting the grass in joy:
“If you don’t know our games… we make new ones.
Where there are no rules… laughter starts.
Where there are stumbles… paths grow.”
“And what if I make mistakes?” the child asked,
fear trembling in his eyes.
Fire Rose winked a petal:
“Here, mistakes are seeds…
and seeds always hide wonders.”
The child lifted his gaze…
and a dawn opened in his eyes.
“Can I stay?” he asked,
as if afraid the dream would end.
Blue Moon laughed like ringing water:
“You cannot stay… because you were never outside.
You’ve always belonged to this garden.”
Then the wind created perfumes never known.
Colors flared like festivals that never close.
Even the sky bent low, wanting to see.
The Garden of Heartbeats grew.
It grew because a heart felt seen.
It grew because a soul felt accepted.
It grew… because even the night… can bloom.
And if anyone ever asks what inclusion is,
the garden will answer without a word:
“It is opening the gate… and finding that the one who enters… was home all along.”