Peachnipples, Photo and all text © Irene O’Garden, 2013
For days we’ve been veiled in a lovely hum. It floated in and out with cooling clouds and warm visitors on Saturday’s garden tour, and keeps us company even now.
A wonderful mystery, these cyclical singers. Seventeen years ago, to the score of their ancestors’ welcoming whirr, we moved into this house. Such spokes rolling round on the wheel of time show us both changes and stay-sames. (We no longer wash our faces in the horse-trough as we had to the first night, but wind still combs the cedars and catalpas.)
A friend recently sent this:
“Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.” —John Berger
In the interest of my soul, here’s a newborn–
PRIMAVERA IN AUTUNNO
Primavera: velvet-nippled peaches.
Sun-buffed oak-shoulders. Slim-
kneed lean green grasses: fragrant
fate. Silver etching childhood-scented
fields. Apple elbows dogwood nudging
juniper. Young magnolia graduates.
Yes, lullabying doves. Yes, autumn vision
losing her precision. Yet, impeccable. Impeccable.
Hope you are “writing the poems” you want to—