Tiny things grow great and mighty.

my garden, poetry, , , , ,

May is for flowers! The first white echinacea opened today, and many other lovelies are in full bloom, like the Chocolate Cosmos, and a fancy mullein I planted in the fall. I hope it gets tall like the wild ones. Sorry, I can’t seem to get a good picture of it yet.

It’s the time of year when the poppies and nigella begin to look a mess, so I spent quite a while today pulling them out of the area by the front door. The picture above shows the situation “before.”  I also removed one of the three salvia clevelandii that live there; you can sort of see one at the back, reaching for the sky with its long branches. The latest landscaper was a hopeless over-planter, I am realizing every day. I love that salvia and its herby scent, but it gets big. One of them to “anchor” the bed would have been plenty. They are casting too much shade, and crowding the Clary Sage that will bloom next month.

Fuligo septica

I discovered the above thing clinging to the inside of a planter box and a milkweed plant. I pointed my phone’s Seek app at it and it knew immediately what it was. The common name it gave me was too unpleasant for me to want to pass on, but it is a kind of slime mold. Probably some of my readers are familiar with it.

Nigella under the plum tree.

My zucchini, sunflower, and zinnia seeds have sprouted. And I think the amaranth, too, though the leaves I see are such tiny ones, I can’t be sure yet. It’s nice to be home enough that I can go out several times a day, set the hose nozzle to “shower” and moisten the ground for them. Here’s a little poem in praise of seeds.

Seeds

The seeds I sowed –
For week unseen –
Have pushed up pygmy
Shoots of green;
So frail you’d think
The tiniest stone
Would never let
A glimpse be shown.
But no; a pebble
Near them lies,
At least a cherry-stone
In size,
Which that mere sprout
Has heaved away,
To bask in sunshine,
See the Day.

-Walter de la Mare

Can’t you see me?

poetry,

From a kind reader I received a poem in response to a poem, the one I posted here recently, “The Birthnight.” It was only a few months ago that I borrowed a hefty volume of Rilke’s poems from the library, and I think I looked at every one. If I saw this one, I forgot it already; in any case, I’m very glad to have it brought to my attention.

I AM, YOU ANXIOUS ONE

I am, you anxious one.
Don’t you sense me, ready to break
into being at your touch?
My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings.
Can’t you see me standing before you
cloaked in stillness?
Hasn’t my longing ripened in you
from the beginning
as fruit ripens on a branch?
I am the dream you are dreaming.
When you want to awaken, I am that wanting:
I grow strong in the beauty you behold.
And with the silence of stars I enfold
your cities made by time.

– Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours

Thomas Paquette, Straight Up

The man who brought the hens.

poetry, , ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


FABLE XXII

THE EGGS

Beyond the sunny Philippines
An island lies, whose name I do not know;
But that’s of little consequence, if so
You understand that there they had no hens;
Till, by a happy chance, a traveller,
After a while, carried some poultry there.
Fast they increased as any one could wish;
Until fresh eggs became the common dish.
But all the natives ate them boiled,—they say,—
Because the stranger taught no other way.
At last the experiment by one was tried—
Sagacious man!—of having his eggs fried.
And, O! what boundless honors, for his pains,
His fruitful and inventive fancy gains!
Another, now, to have them baked devised,—
Most happy thought!—and still another, spiced.
Who ever thought eggs were so delicate!
Next, some one gave his friends an omelette:
“Ah!” all exclaimed, “what an ingenious feat!”

But scarce a year went by, an artiste shouts,
“I have it now,—ye ‘re all a pack of louts!—
With nice tomatoes all my eggs are stewed.”
And the whole island thought the mode so good,
That they would so have cooked them to this day,
But that a stranger, wandering out that way,
Another dish the gaping natives taught,
And showed them eggs cooked à la Huguenot.

Successive cooks thus proved their skill diverse;
But how shall I be able to rehearse
All of the new, delicious condiments
That luxury, from time to time, invents?
Soft, hard and dropped; and now with sugar sweet,
And now boiled up with milk, the eggs they eat;
In sherbet, in preserves; at last they tickle
Their palates fanciful with eggs in pickle.
All had their day—the last was still the best.
But a grave senior thus, one day, addressed
The epicures: “Boast, ninnies, if you will,
These countless prodigies of gastric skill—
But blessings on the man who brought the hens!”

Beyond the sunny Philippines
Our crowd of modern authors need not go
New-fangled modes of cooking eggs to show.

-Thomas Iriarte,
Translated from the Spanish by Geo. H. Devereux

Rafael Zabaleta, Boy with Chicken