Wishes

[Choisya]

Kathy always writes such beautiful, inspirational poems and Megan was lucky to have her as a friend. 

On a more mundane level, I came across this little poem by Robert Louis Stevenson at the beginning of a book of garden verse which I have.  It seems especially appropriate for a book club on gardening:-

Wishes

Go, little book, and wish to all

Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall,

A bin of wine, a spice of wit,

A house with lawns enclosing it,

A living river by the door,

A nightingale in the sycamore.

NB: Please do not rank this or any of my posts.  Thankyou.   C.

[becke_davis]

I think it's beautiful that Kathy is able to translate her grief into poetry.

Like you, Choisya, I'm running to a more mundane verse, but I've always liked this one by Tennyson:

The Flower 

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro' my garden bower,
And muttering discontent
Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall 

It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o'er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
"Splendid is the flower!"

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people

Call it but a weed. 

[Choisya]

---

becke_davis wrote:

I think it's beautiful that Kathy is able to translate her grief into poetry.

It certainly is and I envy her that gift.

Like you, Choisya, I'm running to a more mundane verse, but I've always liked this one by Tennyson:

A timely reminder that Spring will soon be encouraging weeds to grow in our gardens and that they are only flowers sown in the wrong place. 

The Flower 

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro' my garden bower,
And muttering discontent
Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall 

It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o'er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
"Splendid is the flower!"

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people

Call it but a weed. 

---

[KathyS]

Weeds!  I think my flowers are starting to think they are part of the "weed group".  Some of these little twerps are nosing themselves into places that they don't belong!  And you try and tell our board of directors that these guys are flowers, not weeds?!  "Huh", they say. "Get them out of your front yard!" 

I'm joking, but if they do tell me to remove them, I'll tell them they have just as much right as the next plant in my yard!  So there!  I do try to keep them down to a dull roar, kind of like these boards lately!  To no avail!

I picked a little bouquet of flowers yesterday, for my dinning room table.  Daffodils and white carnations.....  Spring is definately here.

And thanks for you nice words, and your poems, too!

Kathy

[becke_davis]

One word: mulch!  Spring is the best time to replace the mulch on flower beds and around trees and shrubs.  It will not only help keep the temperature of the soil fairly constant, but it will stop the young weed seeds from germinating.  If you wait until May to do this, the weeds will have already dug in.

[KathyS]

---

becke_davis wrote:
One word: mulch!  Spring is the best time to replace the mulch on flower beds and around trees and shrubs.  It will not only help keep the temperature of the soil fairly constant, but it will stop the young weed seeds from germinating.  If you wait until May to do this, the weeds will have already dug in.

---

  You're speaking to a Southern Californian...where weeds have no season!  They think it's spring 365 days a year!  I'd love to mulch my flowers, but half of them are in my rock front yard. Ha! 

In my planters in the front, the rain sprouted all of the nice little 'weed seeds' as well as poppies, and allysum, and lavendar, and whatever else is taking a notion to grow!  I'm not sure what's a weed, and what's a 'real' flower right now...and the bulbs are popping up everywhere!  And it's not even Spring yet!

And Evan ends up taking his little shovel to dig holes in my flower beds to run his trucks and cars around on.  It's a lost cause I'm afraid!  But seriously, I told him we would grow a vegetable garden in the back yard this year, where he can dig 'til his hearts content.  He was excited about that.  We talked about the different kinds of vegetables, and what he likes to eat, and what plants grow the fastest.  Kids love the fast ones!

I helped him finish all of his homework yesterday, and part of it was to draw a picture and write a sentence to explain it.  He wanted to draw a picture of a garden, so we looked through some books, and he wrote:  "This is a garden."  He's only in kindergarten, so it was a big deal for him to draw and write this. 

I will go and get bags of mulch, though, and  we will give everything a good 'digging', and what comes back up will be what it will be.  And then plant those veggies!

[Choisya]

Yes, and mulch helps conserve moisture too.

I look forward to seeing photos of Evan's veggies later on in the year Kathy.  Here is a veggie garden for him to colour.

---

KathyS wrote:

---

becke_davis wrote:
One word: mulch!  Spring is the best time to replace the mulch on flower beds and around trees and shrubs.  It will not only help keep the temperature of the soil fairly constant, but it will stop the young weed seeds from germinating.  If you wait until May to do this, the weeds will have already dug in.

---

  You're speaking to a Southern Californian...where weeds have no season!  They think it's spring 365 days a year!  I'd love to mulch my flowers, but half of them are in my rock front yard. Ha! 

In my planters in the front, the rain sprouted all of the nice little 'weed seeds' as well as poppies, and allysum, and lavendar, and whatever else is taking a notion to grow!  I'm not sure what's a weed, and what's a 'real' flower right now...and the bulbs are popping up everywhere!  And it's not even Spring yet!

And Evan ends up taking his little shovel to dig holes in my flower beds to run his trucks and cars around on.  It's a lost cause I'm afraid!  But seriously, I told him we would grow a vegetable garden in the back yard this year, where he can dig 'til his hearts content.  He was excited about that.  We talked about the different kinds of vegetables, and what he likes to eat, and what plants grow the fastest.  Kids love the fast ones!

I helped him finish all of his homework yesterday, and part of it was to draw a picture and write a sentence to explain it.  He wanted to draw a picture of a garden, so we looked through some books, and he wrote:  "This is a garden."  He's only in kindergarten, so it was a big deal for him to draw and write this. 

I will go and get bags of mulch, though, and  we will give everything a good 'digging', and what comes back up will be what it will be.  And then plant those veggies!

---

[KathyS]

Thanks, Choisya, for the picture.  I printed two out, Emma has to have one too!  I think for Emma's birthday I'm going to get her a set of watercolor pencils.  She's my little artist, where Evan is more into 'trucks and cars'..zoom, zoom...around the garden he goes!

Kathy

[becke_davis]

All we need is someone from Australia and someone from New England, and we'll have many of the different planting regions covered!

[KathyS]

Becke, I have these two new books ready to be ordered. 

I was thinking about something, as I checked my wish list, and noting these two books, that I have a little  book/diary "The Old Potting Shed Garden Gatherings" that is just sitting here waiting for me to write something in it.  I don't always know what to do with blank lined pages.

Then I remembered something that Virginia Woolf had done when writing in her diary.  Eureka!  

Writing was, as Hermione Lee in her biography of VW writes:  "partly a sedative", written to appease a "restless state."  She [VW] put down simple exerciises, she put down brief, exact nature notes, becoming  merely a mirror, a recorder, of wartime rural life.  So she notes mushrooming and bilberrying, planting the garden, digging up their own potatoes, sawing wood, watching the horse-drawn mowing machines, sighting butterflies, hawks, swallows, snakes and bees, listening to the locals, as she walks she looks out for things "to be noticed".

"I remember lying on the side of a hollow, waiting for L to come & mushroom, & seeing a red hare loping up the side & thinking suddenly, "This is Earth life."  I seemed to see how earthy it all was, & I myself an evolved kind of hare:  as if a moon-visitor saw me."

One day,as I hung up a refilled hummingbird feeder,  I was swarmed by the little guys! I decided to sit and watch them do whatever they like to do. It seemed as though I couldn't get enough of watching them.  I ended up writing a poem about hummingbirds.  Their antics sunk into my mind.  So, I think short notes, an observation of nature, would be the ideal thing for me to write in this little book of 'Gatherings'!

Thanks for the book.

Kathy

[becke_davis]

Kathy - I used to be good at journaling.  I also used to keep garden scrapbooks, with seed packages, etc.  Then they started to take over the house.

But I still think journaling is a wonderful thing, especially when you stumble upon journals you wrote years before.

I hope you enjoy writing in yours! 

[KathyS]

C- when I read what you'd said on the CE board, along with your posting the poem by your poet, Motion, I started to write something back to you....but decided to make it into a poem for you, using some of your own words.  I hope you don't mind me doing that, and bringing it here, instead.

Sleep well,

  Kathy

My Garden

I went into my garden

 early this morning

I saw my spring flowers

 soon to be opening

The morning sun's rays

 were shining so bright

my cares of the day

 now  gone out of sight

Rivulets of shadows

no longer exist

 my days fill with flowers

all blooms from the mist

Laughter and light

They give through the day

the earth sends her glories

 in every way

[becke_davis]

I love to come back to this board and find poetry here -- thanks so much for sharing this, Kathy -- it's beautiful!  

Are you recovered yet?  Choisya, how about you?

I hope all of our silent participants are as eager for spring as I am.  The snow we experienced while driving through Tennessee and Georgia last week have pushed me over the edge.  I am officially done with winter!  (Now, if only winter will cooperate...) 

[becke_davis]

These are William Wordsworth's words, not mine, but I think they are a perfect preview of spring:

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.  

[KathyS]

I think Choisya has recovered.  She said she got a bazillion hours of sleep!  Sleep always helps.  

Becke, if you live in the tundra, ya gotta expect Winter to Act Like Winter.  Maybe I'll write a poem about crappy winter conditions,  or you can......but in the meantime.... 

......As far as me.  My head is killing me,

after coughing all day...

I don't have any cough medicine, stupid me

forgot to get some yesterday!  

And I wasn't about to go out today! 

I look like death warmed over!

Drinking ten gallons of tea,

and then having to pee

and sucking on a million cough drops....

all helps with every pop.....

a little,

but I should have known these blasted colds get worse

before they get better!

I think I need a baby sitter!

I feel a poem coming on....Or is it a.......

Spring Cold! 

Cough! Cough!....oooh, my head....excuse me please, while I go to bed!

---

becke_davis wrote:

I love to come back to this board and find poetry here -- thanks so much for sharing this, Kathy -- it's beautiful!  

Are you recovered yet?  Choisya, how about you?

I hope all of our silent participants are as eager for spring as I am.  The snow we experienced while driving through Tennessee and Georgia last week have pushed me over the edge.  I am officially done with winter!  (Now, if only winter will cooperate...) 

---

[KathyS]

Becke, thank you for posting this poem.  I meant to go back and look it up, but got busy with a project, and then I was back to reading the VW biography.  Interesting chapter on VW's take on Reading.  Reading this poem reminded me of it. 

VW had some amazing insights on writing and reading:  how we, and our writing, changes while both reading someone elses writing, as well as reading our own writing.  I knew all of this, that's why I haven't read much of anything lately.

Incorporating our views of everything around us, both inward, and outward.  It's complicated to explain how we assume these bodies of work.  When I write a poem, it's all about feelings.  It's so manipulative on several levels!   VW knew this, and knowingly could alter her states of being.  VW, and this author, Wordsworth, explain it so well.  You feel what he feels, as he lets you see what he sees.

---

becke_davis wrote:

These are William Wordsworth's words, not mine, but I think they are a perfect preview of spring:

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.  

---

[becke_davis]

Loved the spring cold ditty -- maybe the cold medicine is going to your head??

I'll have to check out your Virginia Wolff references.  I've always loved the Wordsworth poem because it is so evocative of springtime and because it just feels so joyful. 

[Choisya]

Thanks for your good wishes Becke - as Kathy says, I am OK now.  I love the Wordsworth poem too.  It is the most popular poem in the UK. 

And thanks for the really lovely poem Kathy.  I have printed it out and put it on the wall beside my desk. 

For your cold/cough:  If you have any strong smelling herbs like lavender or thyme in your garden, pick some and sniff at them deeply or make a hot water infusion and breathe in the steam.  Thyme is particularly good for coughs and you can make a tea using half a teaspoon of leaves per cup - improve the flavour with lemon and honey (dried thyme is OK for this).    The purple coneflower (Echinea) is also good for coughs and colds as is oregano/marjoram. 

[Choisya]

Less well known than Wordsworth Daffodils poem, here are two he wrote about snowdrops:-

To a Snowdrop

Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

On Seeing a Tuft of Snowdrops in a Storm

When haughty expectations prostrate lie,
And grandeur crouches like a guilty thing,
Oft shall the lowly weak, till nature bring
Mature release, in fair society
Survive, and Fortune's utmost anger try;
Like these frail snowdrops that together cling,
And nod their helmets, smitten by the wing
Of many a furious whirl-blast sweeping by.
Observe the faithful flowers! if small to great
May lead the thoughts, thus struggling used to stand
The Emathian phalanx, nobly obstinate;
And so the bright immortal Theban band,
Whom onset, fiercely urged at Jove's command,
Might overwhelm, but could not separate!

[Choisya]

Who is awarding me Laurels???   Please desist!!   I do not want anything to do with that silly system!