The Old Guy in the Garden

Hotei sits in a sunny alcove in the garden under a canopy of old rose and buckthorn leaves. Birds serenade him in early morning, and rabbits visit him at nightfall. Bumbles and dragonflies buzz around him, and spiders knit him into their webs. Sometimes butterflies land on him. Maple keys, leaf dust and pine needles rain down from the trees over his head, and he is strewn with grass from our mowing exercises.

Although he appears to be carved from stone, the old guy is polyresin of some kind and weighs only a pound or two. I discovered him in the window of a thrift shop years ago, purchased him for a few dollars and carried him home where he now presides over a leafy enclave in the garden from early April until late October. He is still the first one to be carried out of the garden shed when spring arrives, and he makes me smile. That is something beyond price, thrift shop origins or no.