Mike Powell

It was after 7:00 pm yesterday evening and my urge to take photos was still not satisfied. I had wandered through the garden of my neighbor, Cindy Dyer,  whose photographs and flowers are a constant source of inspiration, but had come up empty, except for some shots of a striped cucumber beetle.

I decided to check out her front porch herb garden to see if there were any interesting bugs to shoot, but there were none. My hope was fading along with the day’s light when I glanced down at a container next to her front door and saw some tiny pink and white flowers growing against a backdrop of darker leaves. I had a subject, though I was clueless about its identity.

I doubted that I would be able to capture the beauty of the little flower, but my tripod and macro lens came to my rescue. I was so excited when I pulled up the images on my computer that I immediately called Cindy to ask her what kind of pink flower she was growing on her porch. She seemed a bit confused by my question, because she couldn’t recall any flowers growing on her porch.

Open laptop in hand, I walked over to her house to show her the image and pointed out where I had shot it. All at once her eyes lit up as she realized what I had photographed. It was basil that had started to flower. I was a little incredulous, because I didn’t know that basil had flowers. Cindy then crushed a leaf and held it to my nose.

My nose revealed what my eyes and my mind had not—it was unmistakably basil.

Tiny basil flower

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.