Mariposa is Spanish for butterfly, a lovely word to find in Oakland, where small gardens flicker with life from the flatlands to the hills. The light here changes by the hour: fog pressing in through the Golden Gate at dawn, sun breaking open over Lake Merritt by noon, the port's great cranes going rose-gold as evening comes. Mariposa Gardening and Design Cooperative brings lawn care to that patchwork of bungalows, brown-shingle houses and stucco courtyards, keeping grass mowed, edges trimmed and walks swept. In late spring the Morcom Rose Garden blooms on its terraces near Grand Avenue, and the lawns in the surrounding blocks seem to put on an inch overnight. What is left behind is simple and real: a patch of green in a busy city, cut level and ready for a chair and a long East Bay afternoon.