Defying ProbabilitiesThe most improbable outcome
Of delirious, fanciful dreams
Is not the impossible can’t-be
That perpetually it seems—
And I can prove this conundrum,
In my personal life, is true,
For it happens that though it’s wildly unreal,
I’m actually loved by you.
I lived most of my life in northern climes. My childhood and many subsequent years spent in the Seattle area naturally color my view of nature and my connections with it, so even though I’ve spent the last four years putting roots down into Texan soil my inner imagery of the season of growth is of sprouts and blooms native to alpine, temperate, rainforest and coastal territory. I appreciate and admire the vast and varied beauties of this wildly different terrain that is my new home, and my heart still resonates joyfully when it comes to those northwest marvels of green and gorgeous living things as well. I don’t think I’ll have to tell you which region inspired these two poems.
The drawings, though, could be a bit more nearly universal. Dandelions, in particular–I can’t think of many places I’ve visited so far that didn’t have a substantial contingent of that sunny little weed blossom. I hardly ever see their smiling faces without thinking of the adorable little enthusiast next door who peered over our fence and, seeing my mother pulling dandelions–and perhaps interpreting this as her enthusiasm for cultivating their charms–piped up to boast enthusiastically (much to her own mother’s chagrin): ‘we’ve got a MILLION of ’em!’ 
In Return
Willingly as daffodils stretch out of the earth
At the first invitation of the sun,
So I come from the dark when my winter ends,
Turn my face up to the blessing sky,
And sigh at the promise of the spearing green
Arising by my feet, even if the icicles
Have not yet
Melted wholly away.
Avalanche Lilies
Amid the muffling drifts of downy snow
That draw the pearly winter sky down low
To kiss the earth once more in early spring
Are sparkling spears of palest glimmering
Green newness, first to show upon the white
And break the slope of frosted winter light
Uncurling soon to show the youthful face
Of spring’s renewal in this sleeping place
If still surrounded by the icy pale
Wild woolliness bedecking hill and vale—
The snow, though mighty, cannot fully stanch
The burst of springtime’s sparkling avalanche
I’m thinking about flowers. [I’m not talking about my cousin’s family, though they’d be a welcome sight in this part of the world as much as any!] Perhaps it’s because, here in Texas, signs of sprouting, budding and even outright blooms are beginning to show all around us: the flowering pear trees are starting to burst like giant batches of popcorn, my infant fringeflower is sporting a deep fuchsia-colored tassel or two, and even the local redbud trees are bravely showing off glimpses of their own hot pinks and purples. It may also be that the influence of a few days spent recently on seasonal cleaning and prep in our yard brings, along with the seasonal sneezing and watering of the old eye-bulbs, the welcome scent of earth and sightings of green specks that seem to increase in size while I watch, reminds me of spring and summers past and favorite blossoms I eagerly await on their return. The recent speedy trip to San Antonio, just enough farther south from us to be a week or two ahead in the race to renew its flora, certainly enhanced my longing for the sight of flowers while it was giving me its own preview. And of course, there’s simply the persistent infatuation with all-things-growing that grips me year-round that might be one of the main instigators of this present hope.
No matter what the cause, my heart is yearning for floral happiness these days.
Too Early to be Called Springtime
Leaning back into the shade
Next to a mirror foxed with age but
Gleaming still with that low glint,
Mercurial, that holds onto its ghosts—those
Pale vapors that have passed
Through the pavilion and its garden greens,
Have dreamed while leaning in
This selfsame shade
Of fading memory and of
Incipient bloom, in this
Just-waking secret garden—
Here I will stay at rest, a shade myself
In the pale green gloaming
Yes, the redbuds are arriving, bees and all; I’m not the only one humming with happiness.
What does it take to make us civil? A good upbringing helps, but it’s not enough. The law contributes its part, but that’s a pretty small piece of the puzzle–those who are unlikely to be civil are unlikely to care all that much about the law either. Education and experience are necessary to making us capable of civility, let alone willing to exercise it.
The flip side of this is the darker compulsion within that drags us into rudeness, insults, argumentative attacks and other such ugliness. Sometimes the wonders of the cyber-world convince us that we live in a moral vacuum where anything goes and we can think, speak and live completely unfiltered realities as we invent them, but it’s no more (and perhaps far less) true in the ether, where we don’t even know the people with whom we interact long-distance, that it’s permissible to tread heavily like that.
One Good Thing by Jillee is the marvelous namesake blog of a woman who is exceedingly creative and thoughtful and consistently gives us readers masses of useful ideas that we can use every day in the operation of our homes and lives. Want to consider making your own detergents and skin treatments? Find out how to do DIY projects to make and fix things all around the house and garden? Learn a new recipe or two? Our Ms. Jill is here to help. More than anything, her posts always get me thinking up further ways to make, do and use all of the delightful things she’s introducing, and how to tweak the things that I like but can’t use as-is–say, one of the lovely creams and potions she likes to make with lavender essence, which I agree smells nice, but I’m sensitive to it and can’t be around it for long. Even though this excellent blogger rightly touts the various medicinal qualities, aromatherapeutic uses and topical applications the fabled lavender blossom can offer, none of it’s right for me when I can’t tolerate any kind of significant presence of the stuff, so I have to use these posts as inspiration, a jumping-off point, rather than as carved in stone. I know when I arrive to read her posts that I may or may not find what she presents entirely applicable to my situation or taste every time even if it were practically infallible, nor does she ever claim such a thing.
So I was more than a little taken aback to see the comments that came in response to her recent post about reducing the calorie load in various recipes and foods by substituting alternate fats, sweeteners and the like. My own preference in my eating is to try to eat less processed foods rather than lower calorie foods, so if I wish to use any of the suggestions from this particular post, it will be because I think they’ll make the foods taste better rather than that I expect them to improve my health. But when I came to the comments made by other readers, there were a number of those correspondents who not only criticized her suggestions as though she were publishing them in a medical journal but, in some cases, got rather mean-spirited and began verbal fisticuffs amongst themselves. It struck me as not only exceedingly ill-mannered but was about as far from germane as possible, given the forum of that blog. All quite uncivil, if you ask me.
But of course, you didn’t ask me, so it’s not only not incumbent upon me to express my opinion in this matter, it might in fact be just a little bit uncivilized to take any other readers to task. Tricky business, this etiquette stuff. It’s certainly not up to me to ‘fix’ what I think is not ideal in others. I am not the law or the arbiter of good taste for anyone else, to be sure. I just hope that I don’t forget myself how to be at least as civil as my parents, teachers and betters have worked so hard to help me grow to be. I’ve got enough to keep me busy just remembering how to write a semi-civilized daily blog of my own and mind my own life’s business. But I don’t mind sending you over to the Good Thing blog so you can also have the benefit of its excellence–and perhaps skew the tenor of the comments back to more fittingly responsive–since I happen to know my readers have such gracious manners!
A Song of Farewell
Ends Only the Beginning
A fond farewell should only end the start
Of what emerged from nothing to become
Much greater than its origins, a home
For all that’s good and gracious in the heart–
What had begun in silence has grown deep
And richer than imagining could guess,
A tapestry of joy and tenderness,
A score of blended notes that time will keep–
Whose voices came together first in this
True confluence of sound and sweet accord
Cannot again move aught but closer toward
Such harmony as, now it’s found, is bliss–
For in love’s benedictory refrain
Awakens what all hearts must sing again.
With gratitude to all at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, Dallas, Texas,
and especially to the choir, for welcoming us so kindly during this past year.
Kathryn Sparks
August 2012
Appraisal
What’s the current market value of a hug, caress or kiss?
Why would any self-respecting person get engrossed in this?
Isn’t it a tad surprising we’d make such hullabaloo
Of this silly, unproductive, non-remunerative goo?
That’s the miracle of romance and of loving: that we choose
To pursue ridiculous intangibles among the ooze
Of lace valentines and candies, in hand-holding, making eyes
Like moo-cows and fuzzy puppies at each other—but the prize
Found in all this crazy weirdness, wacky though our loving be,
Is the exponential return on this small investment that we see
When beloved turns to lover and responds in foolish kind:
That’s the truth toward which we hover when two loves get so entwined.
It takes very little time upon returning to the Pacific Northwest for me to be reminded of one of its central characteristics that became so imprinted on my heart and mindset through my many years of dwelling there as to be interchangeable with my entire concept of wholeness and well-being: the color green. The millions of colors that can be called Green, to be more precise. Having been born in the Emerald City of the Evergreen State, I can confirm that they have earned their titles both the hard way (rain–sometimes seemingly endless–rain–oh, and snowpack and glacier runoff in the spring) and entirely honestly. The city and the state are genuinely, deeply, exquisitely green.
Other places may be green with envy. Yes, there are certainly other spectacularly green places on earth, some of which I have visited, among them to wit: Ireland, Allgäu, and the jungle that straddles the Panamanian border with Costa Rica (a tropical cloud forest) all rife with verdure and also with all of those forms of watery nourishment that bring about such burgeoning beauties in their respectively green-glorious regions. Each green place is unique in the character and flavor of its glowing, growing vegetation, and each gains its place in my heart as much through its variations of verdancy as by any other means.
What it all comes down to is that these things grow on me as much as on the face of the earth, filling my senses and my emotional center in ways that few other things can. This recent return to my mossy, leafy, grassy, graceful green roots merely reminds me of what lies deep within me all of the time. The west coast is so rich in tints and hues and tones and shades and variations of green that I cannot imagine an existence without them and know that green will always be the color against which completeness and contentment and ecstasy are best measured.
Mourn the tiresome persistence of the rain at times, if you must, but once you have been drawn into the corridors of the green world you will likely find it irresistible, too. It bursts with the presence of renewal and strength, lures you with the dappled dream-world light that only a leafy and towering tunnel of trees can create, and makes the heart ache with that yearning form of delight best found in things that sing of secrets, promises and hope.
Mornings are glorious, oh yes: last year’s blue morning glories in their full blazing beauty (center, with the infamous garden chandelier needing better candle power to compete with the blue brightness) inspired the planting of not only the blue variety again this year but also these hot beauties flanking it . . .
My friends, Texas gardening is a ceaseless adventure. I sense that Round One of the growth season has already closed and Round Two is beginning. The first batches of blooming goodies have quickly baked to dainty crisps and their leafy greenness gotten rather scrawny and lean looking. Yes, my darlings, it’s gettin’ hot around here.
The pavement and patio concrete have a certain handily dense solar mass that lends itself to emitting mirage-like rays of shimmering hottitude that fry up whatever seems to have escaped the downward dash of the sunlight as it fell burning from the sky in the first place. Hand watering with a hose, even in the cooler parts of the day, is an exercise in futility to a certain extent–you can practically see the spray evaporating as it comes out of the nozzle, and anything with full sun exposure makes me wonder if the roots of the plant in question will in fact be boiled in the water I’m trying to give it. Gives me a different perspective on the old saying about ‘killing with kindness’, to be sure.
While the planters are already past their first peak (in the left-hand shot taken during the roses’ first heyday), more blossoms are coming in readily; the blue-black ornamental sage next to the bell in the center photo are already a big favorite with hummingbirds–you can just see the white blurred silhouette of one in the lower right quadrant of the picture–and the brilliant blue of borage is in full swing . . .
The first burst of the rose blooms has passed and the buds are in place for their second coming after a couple of weeks of being pruned back and nurtured through their little rest period. The boxed herbs and vegetables are very thirsty and rather root-bound, so I shall have to ease their pain by some gentle dividing and see if they can continue to show their heroism in beating the heat. Even in their potted distress, the borage plants are putting out large trusses of those glorious blue, refreshing-flavored starry flowers, so I will hope all the more that a little judicious division or removal to allow them a little loosening of their too-tight pants will make them happy rather than prove an additional challenge.
Zinnias make fun little hideaway homes for local bug-dom, but katydids seem to prefer something with more windows, and the dragonfly always goes straight for the penthouse so he can survey all of the lesser insects down below . . .
I know that the garden creatures are happy. Besides having me to chew on, the insects have all sorts of plants, not least of all those greens that are heat-stressed and have their defenses down. Some of the little bugs are still shy, like the one just barely peering out of the peachy zinnia above. Most of them are quite happy to be a bit more brazen, though. My little green friend came to the window and hung out with me the other night quite willingly–or was it just staring and spying on me? The prize for showiness this week goes, though, to the handsome Carmine Darter (correct me if I mis-identify) dragonfly that calmly came and posed on my little homemade tomato cage so long that I could come out of the house and get up close and macro-personal with him.
Whatever else happens in my little playground here, the main development will likely be somewhat delayed by the depredations of my intended full-yard rehab and my entirely predictably inevitable mistakes and faux pas. And, of course, getting overheated. For the time being, I am enjoying the begonias, the silverbeet, the sweet potato vine, and the cyclamen; the marigolds, the basil, and the blue sage.
For now, all is color and joy . . . and there is undoubtedly much more to come . . .
Maybe I should buy myself a big tall red conical hat (possibly made of concrete). Because I am not exactly the most useful object, not the most decorative, nor even perhaps the most whimsically amusing, in a garden. But I give it my best from time to time, really I do. And generally, the earth is pretty forgiving and responsive to my fumbling efforts.
The wildflowers hereabouts have continued to delight, with waves of Showy Evening Primrose bordering the roadsides and ditches, and Vervain spiking up out of the meadows . . .
For once, I paid attention to the promises of today’s rain; it’s not been terribly impressive thus far, but it has rained a teeny bit, so it was good to get things a little better in order out there and ready for some watering the day before the rain arrived. Not that I didn’t water it all thoroughly myself, at the end of my stint, since even if the plants hadn’t been so thirsty after all of my brash ministrations on a toasty afternoon, I needed a bit of rinsing too. Besides turning into a human saltwater fountain and being bespeckled by the colorful bite-marks of a seething mass of varied insect pests, I also collected plenty of bits and bobs of garden detritus in my hair, a nice thorough coating of fresh brown dirt all down the front of my clothes (with special emphasis on my mud-capped knees), and the handsome assortment of plant stains reaching up to my elbows, not to mention the weird black stain my cheap metal watchband makes on my wrist when its gets all slippery with sweat. I considered just turning the garden hose on myself full blast but opted for the slightly less neighbor-frightening method of going indoors and showering, after all. They’d suffered enough if they’d just seen me transforming myself into a living blob of nature-gone-bad while gardening.
A sweet mockingbird sat surveying the front yard from the mailbox, but dashed off long before I came closer to tuck some sturdy, spiny agaves around its base . . .
Meanwhile, I did enjoy discovering that besides the blizzards of unlovable bugs gone rampaging on the heels of a warm winter, there are the lovely sorts as well: I was almost constantly surrounded by clouds of butterflies that were attracted to the plants I was tending and the nice little drinking fountains I was making with my sprinkler for them. It was as though the flowers woke up and took wing around me. The birds around here are certainly loving the feast of fresh insects, so at least I can tolerate the biting brats if I know that they may soon, in their turn, be Cardinal Chow. Which reminds me, I’ve heard tell that the hummingbirds are back in town, so the feeders should go back up today. How quickly things change in Spring!
Less than two months of time, and what a difference on the patio and in the yard!
Both the ornamental and the edible is swiftly springing up, and thankfully, many of the latter sort of plants are very much the former too. Along with their other benefits of beauty and entertainment and insect-control, the birds have evidently gotten involved in the garden design work around here, planting a number of sunflowers in serendipitously amusing and even rather unexpectedly apropos spots. I’ll leave them all in place and see what seem to be propitious locations for next year’s crop of sunflowers. Meanwhile, I’ve got lots of other things beginning to come fully into bloom that need deadheading and trimming and fertilizing and watering.
The dainty blooms on the capiscum plants promise sweet bell peppers to come, and the little wild rose is smiling broadly . . .
The roses have–not too surprisingly, given the kindly weather–been great show-offs already this season. The little old-fashioned straggler that I dug up from its hidden spot by the back fence last fall and tucked into a pail is thriving and throwing off a fair number of its small but deeply velvety dark red blooms. The coral colored rose that I moved to a more visible place in the raised bed by the patio has probably already fired up close to a hundred of its bold blossoms, bringing its own dazzling light to the little ‘courtyard’ enclosed by the house’s wings.
The detonation of the roses in bright sunlight is impressive even if only from two plants . . . but should I add more, I wonder, when they're all so lovely? Hmmm . . .
That holly tree that I intended to kill, or at least cruelly constrain (someone planted it much too close to the house’s foundation for either’s good) was stripped to its trunk not much more than a year ago but is not only covered with those charmingly soft new leaves that have their pointy edges but no bite yet but is simply a mass of bloom as well, and now that I’ve seen how adored it is by the bees I know I won’t kill the tree but will just keep it as a sort of vertical bonsai, pruning it vigorously but leaving it to stand as a bee haven, a vine post–I loved having my cobalt-blue morning glory glowing from it last summer and have planted that and other colors this year–and a berry farm for birds and winter decor.
Apparently, the birds and butterflies, not to mention the bees, are going to have a grand dance around the holly tree Maypole this year . . .
The herb-and-vegetable planters are well underway, and there’s not only plenty of borage leaf, despite the marauding munching bugs who try to turn them to lace, for a nice tisane long before they will be tall enough to bloom. The marigolds have opened their brilliant eyes to have a look around, and the carrots and beets are shooting upward (and, I hope, downward). The parsley and other, daintier herbs will have to fight their way up through the jungle a little more slowly, perhaps, but should be strong enough by the time they do that they will outlast the root veg and the annual flowers.
Packed with, very likely, too much, these planters are still cheerfully chipping in to do their flaming floral part . . .
The peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos and red cabbages are all quite happy and healthy looking right now, and as long as the garden pests can’t get ahead of the birds and me, there may be a nice little bit of produce before too long. In the meantime, it’s sweet just to look at the plants and measure their growth by the day, if not by the hour. One of the perpetual delights of gardening, of course, is the unplanned element that invites itself into the flowerbeds and borders. I was elated to find, among the dozens of baby oak and elm tree sprouts volunteering on the property (and many of which I will transplant, when they’re big enough, to other parts of the yard), a seedling which I quickly identified as a mulberry tree. This, too, will have to relocate eventually, but I thank the bird or squirrel that kindly donated it, as it will also become a great wildlife feeder on the back-forty one day. In the right-hand photo, it is balanced on the left by a seedling soapberry that I’ve been nursing along for just such a purpose, and together they frame a wonderful volunteer that apparently forgot it was supposed to be a tender annual plant, a brilliant orange Gerbera daisy from last year.
Gifts from the garden to the gardener: a mulberry seedling, a wintered-over annual flower, and lively green growth galore . . .
Along with the Survivor Daisy there are hints of the wildflower seed I threw nearby beginning to assert themselves. The first tiny cosmos has peeped out from the pathway, and there are promising leaves and stems among the sunflowers and cosmos that say we’ll soon enough be seeing nasturtiums, corn (sweet and ornamental), blanketflower and Echinacea and a whole host of other charmers. If you want to know more specifics of what we’re, ahem, expecting, check back to my plant-list post.
Grandpa Gerber Daisy, meet little Miss Cosmos . . .
I was certainly not confining my attentions to the back yard, and am pleased to say that both the surprises given to me by the garden and the things I’ve done myself and with goodness aforethought out front are also paying off in lovely dividends. The area in front of my beloved’s office window was particularly shabby and is not so easy to suss out, as it’s victimized by bad drainage because of the contours and conditions of our property and also is quite heavily shaded by one of our big beautiful post oaks out there. So if you set these characteristics up in combination with naturally hot and over-dry Texan weather, there are what might charitably be called Conflicts of Interest. I’m experimenting, to say the least. But I’m getting a fair return at the moment and will enjoy it while I can. Among the humorous and pleasant surprises I would count that of having celery in bloom there. Yes, celery. I had a very ancient bottle of culinary celery seed sitting in my kitchen for so long that I was quite sure it had no flavor left at all, but being a thrifty mad scientist, I tossed the contents out in the front flowerbed and behold, a year later I have flowering celery. If it’s biennial like some of its cousins, who knows what next year may bring!
Outside the office window, hope is arising in its green and tenacious way . . .
Between the front walkway and the porch, the flowerbed is cut into yet another poorly drained (but sunnier) spot and is too narrow for its own good. But I’m getting a number of things, mostly perennial, to pop up there and even had a happy re-visitation from last year’s annual sweet potato vine (the fluorescent-green leafed sort) that will probably now give me yet another year of excellent fill-in wherever I haven’t yet solved the bed’s Issues. I’ve tucked in a few herbs besides the front door rosemary that’s thriving–far more than expected–and am working to have a broad mix of textures and colors and seasonal change-ups that I hope will continue to mature and fill in the naked spots until any non-flowery weeds will just feel unwelcome to even visit.
Though the tulips are long gone from the planters, there are all sorts of new things coming in and many possibilities yet to sprout . . .
Along with the porch-side plantings there is also another shady stretch, this one less plagued by poor drainage but still overshadowed by one of our big flowering pear trees, so that too is getting an experimental blend of trial-and-error plantings to withstand the vagaries of seemingly opposing growth needs. One of the particular pleasures of yesterday was finding a Bonus Plant tucked into the pot like some sort of vegetal conjoined twin with one of the agaves I laid in yesterday, so now I have this vigorous ‘baby’ to choose a good home for as well. These specific agaves are a variety (Agave parryi) I’ve long admired for their good looks and was thrilled simply to locate, let alone in a size I could afford, but doubly so on learning that they are supposed to be relatively hardy plants–and then on top of all that, I got a big, handsome extra among them. Surely the garden gods were smiling on me yesterday. Or at least the garden gnomes.
Last year's Beautyberry has burst into full bright green leaf, the New Zealand Flax is spiking up its burgundy spears, and the variegated leaves of their companion flax lily lights up the shade with its fine stripes. And where will bonus baby Spike go to live? Stay tuned . . .
Aside from things like my having been chewed upon ungraciously by a bunch of skeeters and having very indelicate and unladylike rivers of sweat inundate my poor little eyebulbs, the inside of my glasses lenses, and every single item of clothing upon my personage, an afternoon of gardening like today’s is a very welcome thing. I finally got after some of the weedier segments of the flowerbeds, planted some of my sprouted babies, moved a plant or two, and did some watering, and by golly, the place looks a tad more presentable.
In honor of that, herewith: a little Texiana and a Garden Fairy for your delectation and/or amusement. Tomorrow, perhaps, a batch of garden update photos. Just to prove I did something, don’t’cha know.
Once Upon a Time in Texas: the Genesis of Big Hair & the Ten Gallon Hat . . .
Art-Colored Glasses 