Welcome to the Bellevue Botanical Garden and today’s letter for the A to Z Challenge, E Is For Entrance! Believe it or not, the Garden is host to a variety of majestic entrance points. In Asian garden philosophy, and in particular the ones with which I’m most familiar, that of Japan and that of Guangzhou, China, doorways and entrance points are given much thought. So, too, are windows and other vantage points from which to view something the garden designer wishes you to see.

This is deceptive, as it’s actually a view of the exit: I merely walked in and turned around, to show you the sunrise and the parking lot. The car entrance to the Garden is circuitous: first you arrive at the passenger drop-off, then you swing around to the left to the first row of parking places. Then around to the right, then again to the left, then up and around to get off the Garden’s demesnes.

Oh, come on. I just had to use demesnes in a sentence.

Moving right along then…

I love water features: fountains, bird baths, fish and koi points, rivers, streams, waterfalls – you know, water featured in a water feature.

And this, Dear Reader, is a water wall. It’s sort of a fountain, with a little pond at the bottom, fed by a stream at the top that’s in a channel created by an artist that, in turn, comes from a fountain.

In short, this sucker pushes ALL my buttons.

And it’s a nice place at which to meet other people in order to tour the Garden, if you’re an extrovert.

Like me, say.

But I digress.

Apparently, I’m not the only one on a Friday morning before work who wants to gain entrance into the garden. All forward movement counts, my friends; all forward movement counts.

To My Friend, David Bridger

I thought of you in the dawn
My friend, like the sun setting
Fire to the world.
The burdens you carry are not
Ones I can take from you
And you are, like the sun,
Untouchable. Your words warm
Me, like that selfsame sun
Because I know you long
For Fenrir to catch you and
Take you into the West.
I grieve that day just as I
Watch the dawn of this
For I know the cycle turns
Whether we will it or not.
And so, like Orpheus, I stare
Into the sun and let its
radiance hide that my tears
Are not due to its radiance, but yours.