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Sunday, April 08, 2012

Easter morning - a garden story


"Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair ...
... mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice ...

We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or an old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free ...
Deer walk upon our mountains, and quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings."

from Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning


This is it, folks. A life of grace given in mystery. We go gentle on this old earth, or should. It's all we have.

Seeking completion, and something like beauty and my own kind of salvation (I'll be 67 on Monday), I've been thinking about that empty space across the garden; you see it more closely below ...


... the space on the other side of the far path ...


 ... it needs a stone wall, a wall of "ambiguous undulations" to frame the garden's story - a visual halt before the woods begin, perhaps a serpentine wall  of undulating height to build a little movement, rising gently to meet the understory of Viburnum prunifolium catching the morning light, reaching up to the trees. A wall to set the garden, in this bare state, in silent motion.

(Thanks to Emily for reminding me of Andy Goldsworthy.)

After realizing readers were interpreting this post as religious (christian), I've amended it. 
This is not a religious posting.

21 comments:

  1. "God and the imagination, we say, are one."
    Happy Easter! Happy birthday :-)
    Greetings from the Czech Republic, Petra

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    1. Petka, Thank you. I see we're on the same wavelength.

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  2. Happy Easter, James - and happy birthday for tomorrow. I like your idea of an undulating wall. I see you already have an undulating hedge of shrubs - it would echo that.

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    1. Thanks, Victoria. There's a lot to be said for undulation.

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  3. I think it's a good idea.

    I'm presuming it'll be a low, undulating wall. What's the local stone like?

    Happy Birthday James.

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    1. Not too high, Rob. We're not strong enough. But I would like some clearly visible difference in height of the various parts. Our local stone is Argillite, a hard greenish/gray stone. Though it's of sedimentary origin, it rings like metal when hit. It's old time local name is Blue Jingle or Blue Jingler. Very local to this area.

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  4. Happy birthday! Is there stone available on your property? Or will you choose and order?

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    1. Thanks, Diana. It's local stone, arranged into stone rows by early farmers, probably in the 18th century. So it's ready to hand, and free.

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  5. Happy Easter and Happy Birthday! That is a lovely view. How about a wide/shallow demi-lune of pleached trees sheltering a stone sphere?

    Emily

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    1. Emily, you're always pushing my boundaries. You must have endless energy. Wonderful idea, but I'd need trees that remain small and that grow in shade. And at age 67, I fear I'll be 97 before that "demi-lune" grows up. And the stone sphere, another great idea, but much harder to make than a wall.

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  6. Happy Birthday and many more days of sunny chairs, late coffee, and oranges on that terrace.

    Will the wall run in front of the woods (about parallel to the far path) or trail off back into the woods? I could see it following the path, but also looping back behind and then out of the woods and undergrowth (sort of stitching the woods to the garden).

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    1. Cindy, thanks for the wishes. But I don't have a peignoir! I like the linking of the woods with the garden, but I have an 8-foot-tall deer fence there (and all around the garden), so any such linkage would be a false one. There is a long curving stone wall to the right of the one I'm proposing (it's not visible in the photos), and this new wall would pick up something of the sweep and movement of that long wall, but with variations, like water breaking from a smooth flow into turbulence.

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  7. One of my favorite poems and favorite gardens (yours). A very happy birthday.

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    1. Thomas, I love the poem too and, of course, wanted to quote much more of it, but after using it I realized many people not familiar with the poem could interpret it in a religious, specifically Christian, sense, especially since I used it on Easter morning (I don't see the poem as Christian at all, but about a kind of aesthetic perception and meaning that replaces the "holy hush of ancient sacrifice"). I value your opinion and am pleased that you like my garden. Can't wait to see what you're doing in yours.

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  8. Thank you for this evocative post - the poem is new to me and all the more lovely for it. May you have many, many years of sitting in the sun contemplating what next to do in your lovely, wild garden.

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    1. Thanks, Tanja. Look up the poem. I'm afraid my excerpting misrepresents it.

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  9. A very happy 67th, James! I can see why you feel a wall would provide a needed definition. The poetry is beautiful - very American, with its sense of freedom, or so it seems to me.

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    1. Faisal, thank you. Stevens is certainly one of the great American poets. Did you know he was an insurance executive by day?

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  10. Jim,

    A belated Happy Birthday to you! If only folks would think about the "idea" of walking gently on this earth, it would go a long way. Even better, if they took it to heart as you do.....possibilities abound.

    What an interesting design challenge. How to ease the garden line into to and with the woods. I'll ponder this on my drive out to the nurseries today.

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    1. Michael, when you visit, we can talk about that. My garden, of course, couldn't exist in the woods and it's simple reality that it is a thing entirely different and apart from the woods. It's also cut off by the deer fencing, which creates a physical obstacle. So should I "ease the garden line" into the woods, or do the opposite? Illusion and reality. Smoke and mirrors. Theater and nature.

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  11. New plans for two gardens -- I hope I have half as much to occupy me when I'm 67 and not just "complacencies of the peignoir." Happy birthday, James.

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