Fast Day 323 August 17 2013 Nightmare Gardens

edited 8-20-2013

Nightmare Gardens

A grumpy demon of the forest haunted

the old root cellar that was beyond the bell vine,

near the old out-house made of wood

to which paint could not stick,

and fell in flayed strips in summer;

where the flowers swooned and paled,

and mildew spread its suffocating powder carpet,

below the bloat of bully and sullen bees

and yellow-jackets, both prisoners

of their poverty and religion :

being hard shell Anabaptists and missionaries,

whose uppermost apparel, coarse saffron striped,

no silk, satin, chamblet, nor taffeta in their gowns…

tired doublets and jerkins of their faith,

their stingers of certain disorders villainous -

evil and malicious against man’s presence;

embittered snakes that crawl along the garden,

see me and interrogate:  God save you, noble sir!

What are the secret whisperings? The grumblings

of the voles and slanders of the mice…

Is the old man gone?

I shouted:

Hieroglyphic animal!

Viper of old times!

Embosomed while envenomed in His very garden!

Serpent author of the books…

divided into four parts…

first, bees and wasps, and those that part the thorax;

then corn, wheat, barley, and ploughing;

Osiris’ tail-bone the third book,

and viticulture the last!

Begone! I cried, as I threw my staff at them.

And I sat down and wept,

weeping long for the past,

when demons hid grey among the ruins,

unseen in their weeds,
where the great marquees of vines
support the dark and sunless day,
creating baleful shadows in the deep recesses!

--
notes

"unseen in their weeds"  - the old expression "weeds" meaning "clothes"

This may be my father's garden, little attended since his demise, or it may be Eden after the Fall. I have always thought a demon inhabited the root cellar, and grew thin and taut until it could feast on blood or some near-blood items.
It used to frighten me, until I realized how much a prisoner it was, and how obsessed with a paltry existence it was.

Fast Day 289 December 15 2012 {The Gardener Says}

 Le Vieux Jardinier    par Guillaume Van Strydonck

The Gardener Says

The Gardener says:
The northern wind comes
and interrupts the trees
closely spaced within our garden,
ties and unties the laces
of the branches interweave -
like combing the snarls
from a child's hair -
and tosses the mixed fruits:
cherries and peaches,
from tree to tree
faster than the presto eye
can follow.

The west wind is the metronome,
the east wind brings the storm,
the south wind is an amulet called "azure"
that keeps us safe from harm.

--

Fast Day 288 December 9 2012 {The Gardener Passes}

The Gardener Passes

Now the pain blooms with surprising petals,
and the gladiolus of illness
loom large upon the furrows of his despair.
We who dug and cultivated
are harrowed in our time
are we not?

Plow, dig, harrow, spade, and rake;
pinch, pull, trim, slice, and scythe.
Now the surprising petals that form and weld
the chalice of the hibiscus covenant
bend not for us;
what next?

--
late getting this up
I was at my parents and away from internet.
my father loves his garden, and he shall never see another.

Fast Day 286 Nov 24 2012 {Seeds in the Wind}

Seeds in the Wind

the fly-away days, the fly-away nights;
when the wind is blowing,
tumbling and rolling;
squandering old-witch grass,
throwing seeds far and wide;
some find way to grow
as they have for a million years,
far, far older and more ancient
than the math of markets -
markets free or otherwise -
miracle logic:  loaves and fishes!

when Jesus played and Peter laughed
with  the water and the wine -
our fates first entwined -
and all float upon the wind
heedless, squandrous seed heads,
wafting, riding
on roller-coaster Creation,
until stopped by some obstacle,
and we pull back and ponder
germination and genesis;
suddenly students of quick and dead.

--
notes

Life can suddenly become serious, and we face birth and mortality at Thanksgiving time.

Fast Day 282 October 27 2012 {Gardens and Deer}

Gardens and Deer

Exile songs of Deer in Babylon,
it is so sad;
they come around and eat the flowers that we
try to grow;
those they ignore are cut
by mowing madness soon…
The deer eat the hosta down to the stem,
leaving a nest of wispy pre-raphaelite quills
like precocious
and flippant rosetti…
like Ophelia pennants – thin
and hazarding the wind.

So I waited up for them one night,
gun in hand,
to stop their eating of the flowers that we
try to grow;
and I shall cut them down
by rifle and the moon…
beyond midnight they came, all three of them,
we unflinching stood staring each other... they spoke:
mystery gard’ner!
bone-cave keeper!
bounteous god, let us see
your garden immortality!

--
needless to say, I let them eat the rest of the gardens.

Fast Day 257 May 6 2012 {Islands In The Ocean} (1)

Islands In The Ocean

Trees swimming in the midst of distant sights:
wooded stepping blocks within a vast sea,
dropped by a Bauhaus regularity;
when seen afar: an artificial atoll
well stocked with architectural delights.

As we draw near, this order we impeach:
these small appendices to aesthetic
become Edenic kingdoms in turmoil:
Island Galaxies light-years in the Stream!
... or, at least, off some distance from this beach...

--
notes

Islands, Architecture, Gardens

impeach  - to change an earlier impression

small appendices to aesthetic -  Hegel considered gardens to be small and unimportant parts of aesthetics, the theory of beauty. Gardens were like an appendix to architecture.

(From a distance, the islands looked very regular, and drawing near they took on a jungle of detail, and I thought of the change from hazy nebula to vast Island Galaxies, from regular to complex, and felt small in the universe!..., but, they were still just islands a ways away from the sandy beach. Whether Art or Nature, it was still beyond my grasp, and I sort of give up my galactic viewpoint and become ironical in tone, changing from galaxies to standing on a beach... probably in a bathing suit and looking pale... possibly flabby.)
--