his blog is devoted to a select group of poets. We're starting with poets from the Ann Arbor area, but, hey, if you're from Detroit, Grand Rapids, Saginaw or the Upper Peninsula, then that is okay, too. We've even been so generous to accept poets from other parts of the USA and the entire country of Canada!
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Smith College Botanical Gardens, Northampton, MA circa 1964
ReplyDeleteI would wander for hours in Smith College Botanical Gardens. I am eight and these gardens feel as huge as a castle. The floor of the botanical garden greenhouse is composed of huge slabs of uneven stone. If I trip and fall at eight years old, I always get up.
The garden is maybe eight rooms total. The sun in the botanical garden greenhouse is intensified by the thin panes of greenhouse glass. When I think of the gardens, I think of the greenhouse, although, as an adult I know that the gardens are actually composed of over a hundred acres, some of which includes Paradise Pond. The Botanical Garden, I also learn later, were designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed Central Park in NY City I don’t know any of this as a child. All I know, because I can feel it, are that there are magical properties to this place, especially the greenhouse—Lyman Plant House & Conservatory.
The first room in the conservatory is the water room. I call it the water room, although I doubt that’s what Lyman or Olmstead called it. This room felt huge, but is, in fact, only the size of two living rooms. In this room are several man-made ponds. Each pond is about three feet high and when I rub my hand on the side of the pond structure, it feels a combination of cement, river stones and pea gravel. There are four small ponds in this room, the first room as you enter the greenhouse. One of the ponds, houses dozens of large goldfish. They live under the lily pads. It is dark below the lily pads and my shadow casts a deeper darkness. I am afraid of this pond as it feels deeper than three feet. Maybe ten or twenty feet deep.
In another pond are millions of tiny green plants. I don’t know their name but they look and have the consistency of a shamrock. That is, if a shamrock were as small as a period at the end of a sentence. I poke my finger into this pond and lightly skim the top. When I take my finger out, the green plants cling to my finger. I stare at that finger and think how much it looks like a tiny garter snake. Luckily, I have no fear of garter snakes.
The next room in the garden I call the South American room. The ceiling must be thirty feet high here. The room accommodates several banana trees, but I’ve never seen a yellow banana on the trees. When I look up at the banana trees its leaves are splayed against the glass ceiling—almost like an umbrella. Clusters of green bananas cling tightly to the top of the tree. When I take my brother to the greenhouse, he always tries to climb the tree. I try to stop him because I am afraid we will be thrown out, but I almost never see anyone working in the greenhouse. When I do see a person working, he or she looks like a teenager and they just hurry through the room and don’t notice me or my brother.
Each plant in each room has a brass plaque in front of itself. On the plaque is the English name for the plant as well as the Latin name. I am enthralled that some things—plants, birds—can have two names. My grandmother told me my name in Greek means “pure.” My brother’s name, William, in German means “warrior king”. At least that’s what my father, who is also named William, says. That feels much more impressive than pure.
As an adult, when I come back to the greenhouse, I am struck at how very small it is. The entire plant and conservatory seems the size of a large modern house. Maybe 6000 square feet. Yet, as a child the conservatory felt immense and I believed inside the glass walls there existed a smaller version of the natural world. The quiet in this place felt special and good. A good quiet with the sun shining prism-like through the glass. A place bright and hopeful.
The Botanical Gardens are the closest I come to nature in my small town and I am excited for the world that exists, green and verdant, outside its rooms. The world with banana trees and cacti and plants and birds with two names.
Catherine Powers
October 2013
SMALL SEEDS
ReplyDeleteWhy a garden?
I wonder that sometimes.
It doesn't keep me up nights,
it doesn't grab me
like the question "why evil?"
or the question "why free will?"
or even the question "why craving?"
But it is curious.
A place of beauty
a place of rest
repose, tranquility
whispered secrets
that keep two people going
for another ten years
kids run, still free
dogs pee
elders feed pigeons
lovers mesh
Love suffers.
- Mike Fedel
November, 2013