Dear fellow poets and esteemed bleaders,
My mac froke out on Sat night and I have been pretty disconnected since then. It’s always a bad time for such a thing and of course it is a bad time for it now. Still, I have been spending a lot of time gardening, and that is a good time. So I just checked this blog for the first time in a bunch of days.
Great Caesar’s ghost, you guys have been busy.
First, congratulations to us for being one in a hundred, which is the same as being one in a million, but from the other direction.
Second, Matthew you crack me up. I haven't read all your posts yet but I am already very interested and certain you have to come over my house and talk about this with me. I will give you a choice of coffee, tea, beer, or sangria.
Third, my attention for David on Marylyn is the ablated ablate of bated breath.
Fourth, yall are talking gardening! I’m in sun-dappled Brooklyn having exactly the same experience. This is the first time in my life that I have ever made a garden. Last summer we had only just moved in and I threw in some flowers and clipped a few things and enjoyed the roses on either side of our yard (though they were/are a bit bright, loud red on one side, shrieking pink on the other, and then in the middle my little dark hidden garden under a cherry tree that blinks pink for a week then goes somber as a shadowed hombre).
I go for a variation of greens and soft oranges and marigolds and washed out pinks, a little bright blue, a little bright yellow. This year I discovered that I am noticeably less of what we used to call a “mental case” when I am in the garden fussing about. But still I share the various expressions of hope and total existential despair, as did Jim Tate in the poem Stacey posted. My yard was not really being used by the prior tenant, so it was mostly mine to do, which I didn’t fully appreciate until reading Laura’s post. It is easier for me to just put things where I want, by feel, than it is to rip out stuff.
My first challenge was the grass. Not entirely straightforward, the growing of grass. A lot to it. Very satisfying. Then I put in some flowers. Most recently it’s been all about vegetables. I don’t have many of each but I have lots of variety. We’ve already eaten a strawberry. The four of us split it. Pretty exciting for 3 and 5 year old and their parents.
Laura, I too grew some from the seed; I too made it pretty hard on the poor little its When the roof collapsed out back and were were not allowed back there, I let them all go arid of soil and wan of leaf. The plants I later bought as toddlers and teenagers are much more encouraging, but who knows. No one knows.
Well, I don't have much more computer time right now, so I can not respond further to all the ghosts of Caesar. Even Caesar ceases.
And you, such a brute. Next week: poetry! photographs!
love,
Jennifer
