John & Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. ………–From a Freshman’s Short Story
They were like gazelles who occupied different grassy plains, running in opposite directions from different lions. They were like postal clerks in different zip codes, with different vacation time, their bosses adamant and clock-driven. How could they get together? They were like two people who couldn’t get together. John was a Sufi with a love of the dervish, Mary of course a Christian with a curfew. They were like two dolphins in the immensity of the Atlantic, one playful, the other stuck in a tuna net — two absolutely different childhoods! There was simply no hope for them. They would never speak in person. When they ran across that windswept field toward each other, they were like two freight trains, one having left Seattle at 6:36 p.m. at an unknown speed, the other delayed in Topeka for repairs. The math indicated that they’d embrace in another world, if at all, like parallel lines. Or merely appear kindred and close, like stars.
More than ten years ago I first posted this poem, after my late husband and I had been laughing over Cope’s poetry while drinking our morning coffee.
Now, I’m amused, and wondering, at how fast January has gone by. Because time, and the unstilled wheel still turning. We may as well keep a sense of humor about it!
I’ve been in the garden every day, at least a little, and often a lot. When I come downstairs in the morning and realize that it’s already warm enough that I can slide the glass door open, without thinking about it I slide open the screen door, too, and go out to have a look.
The bluebird parents can be seen flying back and forth to feed the peeping infants. Finches, sparrows, hummingbirds and even the flirty Bewick’s Wren fill the space with their songs. Oh, and crows. It is a new thing the last few years to have crows in my yard. I prefer the old way, and I politely ask them to leave. They leave but they come back.
Often in the morning I will put water in the fountain, and trim a little here or pull a weed there. Most days I seem to spend quite a while picking sweet peas.
The sweet peas have become very intimate with the perennial runner beans. The sweet peas were up on the trellis months earlier, and were covered with flowers when the bean stems emerged at three corners of the planter boxes and started climbing. They mostly twist their stems around the pea vines as they climb, and quickly they have outclimbed the peas.
The pea vines responded in kind, continuing their reach for the sky by holding on to the beans. This relationship has to end, though, because the peas are expiring while the beans are only now putting out a few flowers. So, the last couple of days when I pick the flowers, I’m also going to a lot of trouble to break up this love affair without breaking the bean stems. Let’s hope I can plan better and not let this situation develop next spring.
When the sun gets too high and I start to droop, I go indoors and do housework. Or read poems. I’ve been bingeing on them in the last week, and hope to share my favorites here eventually. Maybe in the fall when I have finished my Big Sort, the organizing of all my Stuff: rooms, closets, cabinets, drawers and belongings to throw, give or put away. I hope the Big Sort will be done long before that, but there is the garden…
I mixed up some fish emulsion and fed the lemon tree today. I wanted to give it more iron, too, but I read on the bottle that you should not apply that until late evening. It was time for a break, anyway, so here I am. And here is a poem I read last night, which I hope you like:
GARDENER’S PRAYER
O Lord, grant that in some way it may rain every day, Say from about midnight until three o’clock in the morning, But, You see, it must be gentle and warm so that it can soak in; Grant that at the same time it would not rain on campion, alyssum, helianthus, lavendar, and others which You in Your infinite wisdom know are drought-loving plants- I will write their names on a bit of paper if you like- And grant that the sun may shine the whole day long, But not everywhere (not, for instance, on the gentian, plantain lily, and rhododendron) and not too much; That there may be plenty of dew and little wind, enough worms, no lice and snails, or mildew, and that once a week thin liquid manure and guano may fall from heaven. Amen.
-Karel Matej Capek Chod (1860 -1927) Czech Republic
Ogden Nash makes me rejoice in the English language as it presents itself to his peculiar, playful mind. I liked this galloping poem, and won’t argue with it, because that’s not what humor is for. But I will say that the line I chose for the title of my post led me from laughing to silent theologizing…
TIME MARCHES ON
You ask me, brothers, why I flinch. Well, I will tell you, inch by inch. Is it not proper cause for fright That what is day will soon be night? Evenings I flinch the selfsame way, For what is night will soon be day. At five o’clock it chills my gore Simply to know it isn’t four. How Sunday into Monday melts! And every month is something else. If Summer on the ladder lingers, Autumn tramples upon her fingers, Fleeing before the jostling train Of Winter, and Spring, and Summer again. Year swallows year and licks its lips, Then down the gullet of next year slips. We chip at time with clocks and watches; We flee him in love and double scotches; Even as we scatter in alarm He marches with us, arm in arm; Though while we sleep, he forward rides, Yet when we wake, he’s at our sides. Let men walk straight or let them err, He never leaves them as they were. While ladies draw their stockings on The ladies they were are up and gone. I pen my lines, I finish, I scan them, I’m not the poet who began them. Each moment Time, the lord of changers, Stuffs our skins with ephemeral strangers. Good heavens, how remote from me The billion people I used to be! Flinch with me, brothers, why not flinch, Shirts caught in the eternal winch? Come, let us flinch till Time stands still; Although I do not think he will. Hark, brothers, to the dismal proof: The seconds spattering on the roof!