After Easter, still reveling in spring

The lone Dutch iris-PL

 

                 Once again, the celebration of Lent, Holy Week and Easter has passed. And our part of the earth is abloom with plant life and with little girls and boys in new, bright frocks. Worshippers took flowers to adorn the empty crosses in their churches that went from stark black to rainbow bright.

                Now, women can wear white shoes, slacks and skirts—but only until Labor Day, you understand. Fellows can pull out their white kid shoes or wingtips and their straw hats. Teens can—where allowed—wear sleeveless shirts and shorts, and collegians can wear…. whatever they can get by with, uh, whatever they want to.

                I always require a pretty good reason to really, really deep-clean the house—either company, Christmas, or upholstery made dull by cats sleeping thereon. Noticing that the sofa pillows were dingy compared to the skirt below, I determined to wash those suckers before my company came last Saturday.

                I’d washed the velvet-looking throw pillows earlier, and after drying, the stuffing went back in OK, and they zipped up fine. But, oh, the lint trap on the dryer!

                While the four much-larger seat covers—two from the sofa and two from the matching loveseat—were washing and drying, I vacuumed the space underneath them. How they got full of tiny pellets of who-knows-what is anyone’s guess. But how could an advertisement—still in the envelope and meant to be delivered between such-and-such a date in 2007—get down in the side?

                The next step took sheer grit and determination: how to get the slabs of foam--sided with eiderdown-like material--back into the coverings. Not looking to bend if possible, I took one pillow and cover at a time out to the porch swing.

                Because I had unzipped, then stripped the covers down like I used to do my toddler children’s wet bathing suits, I figured they’d go back on the same way, except backwards. With one arm/hand inside to guide the cover, and the other one outside to pull up the fabric, and with lots of repetitive motions, the task got done. Zipped up and everything. Proud, proud person I was, especially when—upon placing the pillows where they belonged--they actually matched the skirts of the two pieces.

                Without any badgering from me, the cats have not deigned to sit upon the clean seats. On the back, yes. I cover the seats at night, though, just in case.

                Back to company, BFF Dot drove down from Beebe Saturday morning for the day. We vowed earlier to try to spend at least some time together each month, and this was the day. I had soup made, and cheese dip, but no dessert.

                I’d clipped a “Pumpkin cheese cake” recipe from the April issue of Arkansas Living because I had every ingredient needed. So I cooked it!

                “1 Graham cracker pie crust. FILLING: 1 1/2 packages of cream cheese (12 oz.), softened.

1/2 cup sugar; 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice; 1 cup pure pumpkin; 1 egg. DIRECTIONS: Beat cream cheese, sugar and spice on medium speed. Stir in pumpkin, add egg and mix until blended. Pour into crust and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Cool and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.” Yummy!



It's here! It's here! Spring's finally here!

 

               

                After all our moaning and groaning, harrumphing and grumping about the lateness of spring, Mother Nature—taking her own good time—finally heard and gave us our wishes.

                Blooming as I write this:-- cinquain-and-a-half-- are:

“Red bud,

dandelion,

thrift, Stars-of-Bethlehem

henbit, fleabane, dianthus, one

tulip,

 

dogwood,

wood violets,

lilacs, pansies, iris—

(the rest defy syllabification required by the poetic form.)

                Also in bloom are the yellow rose of Texas, vintage double daffodils, azaleas, the last vestiges of japonica and spirea, the Christmas poinsettia, baby jew, begonias—beefsteak (in water!) and common (in water!), African violets and epesia—the latter two, inside.

                The outside porch plants have endured a month’s worth of wind. The Norfolk pine is so tall I placed it on the ground by the east porch foundation. Even there, it fell over three times. But only into the azaleas. No harm done.

                During several of the lately-nice evenings, I rooted out—by pick—or clipped to the ground—privet—the main green and growing nemesis at Couchwood. Following closely is honeysuckle, which while blooming provides such fragrant redolence. But before and afterward, it creeps up and around, the parasitic vine foisting itself like a needy person on whatever is near. You dare not stand too close for too long, or its tendrils might reach out and leech/latch on to you!

                The Encore azaleas in my beds took a hit during the extended and intensely-cold winter. While one bush—not an Encore--given by California brother to Mama several years before her demise—was not affected, the 8-year-old bushes (from her funeral) were.

                I decided to take things in my own hands—namely clippers—and cut out any growth that didn’t have a pink bud at its tip. Only then did I email my Oak Ridge uncle to see whether or not I should do that. He suggested waiting another month. Too late. But the pruned bushes are pinking out nicely.

                We’ve all heard of “movers and shakers” and “shape shifters,” right? Anyone who works in plants and dirt are such. Here’s my story: For several years, now, I’ve noticed a patch of white daffodils at the extreme southern part of this acre.

How the bulbs originally got there is an enigma. But as of last week, they no longer reside in that out-of-the-way place. I spaded them up—red clay dirt and all—and replanted 3-4 bulbs in each of 3-4 places in the yard. Of course, the perky blooms immediately folded their heads in death prayers. I snipped them off, saved the best ones for a vase inside, and dropped the rest with their seed heads around the plantings. (Movers and shakers, shape shifters? Yep.)

I still have two containers of day lilies to move to Grandmother’s lily garden/ our pet cemetery under the sassafras grove. Plus 4 small evergreens to go from container to earth. I also have 3 pots of variegated privet, 2 pots of bayberry—all to space out (with the evergreens) on the west property line, which has nothing past the neighbor’s privacy fence.

One change I’d like to make in established plantings is to move the lilac from the back “dooryard.” I can’t see and smell the blooms unless I go to the shed or the garbage cans. This plant I started from a slip in a cardboard sleeve bought at Fred’s many years ago. It is the first lilac ever to bloom (in my memory) at Couchwood.

 

 

N. P. M: featuring Hot Springs AR poets

~~ the lateVerna Lee Hinegardner, one of the poets featured in this post~~

 

From the 1992 collection, Echoes from the Valley: Selected poems by Roundtable Poets of Hot Springs, Arkansas, I have chosen a post full of pieces.

                AFTER A NIGHT OF THUNDERSTORMS – by Jeanie Carter

Day began badly enough:

creek threatening our newly seeded lawn,

digital clocks blinking twelve a.m.

and my watch stopped at four;

kids cranky, losing socks and throwing up,

and you, humid as the day outside,

blaming me for all the wrong.

Late for work,

I skidded a curve

and caught the bluebird

smack against my windshield.

It slid only to mid-hood

and lay, a quiet blue,
big as the car beneath it.

~~

                THE SONGS ARE AS VARIED AS THE PEOPLE WHO SING THEM – Mary Lou Gipson, deceased

 When Arkansas drew territorial lines

Where stately pines and mountain ranges spread,

The rugged men could read the tell-tale signs

That Statehood born of greatness lay ahead.

They wrote our songs of valleys lush and green,

Of fields that ripen in the summer sun;

Of rivers flowing through the delta scene,

Heroic men and battles they have won.

Across the years we hear the voices ring --

Sad prison songs of men who broke the law;

Of love gone wrong, of home, but when we sing

Of happiness, we sing of Arkansas.

     With bonds of brotherhood that make us strong
     Arkansans face the future with a song.
~~

                X AND O – Verna Lee Hinegardner, deceased

When Mama wrote me long ago

her X and O

meant kiss and hug.

I felt so snug

within her warm contagious zeal

that I could peel

away life’s crust

and dine on trust.

My Mama left a legacy,

her recipe:

for total bliss,

just hug and kiss.

[Mrs. Hinegardner invented the Minute pattern: 60 syllables--her husband named it.]

~~

                DUST IN THE WIND – Bruce Alan MacPherson, deceased

I stand

Watching the dust

Lending form to the wind

Blowing away Empires, Idols,

And Kings.

                ALL THINGS PASSING – Sr. M. Ricarda McGuire, deceased

Because you sparkled sunshine through my glooms

and laced my melancholy with bright shafts

of cheer, I came to think that loneliness

was exorcised forever from my life.

I did not know that hurt could strike again,

like devastating, adolescent grief.

I thought I had been healed and immunized.

I never knew remission was not cure.

~~

                UN-FULFILLED – Opal Jane O’Neal, deceased

 Old dreams

tiptoe across

the winter of my years;

stark starving redbirds tracking up

my snow.

~~

                TRIBUTE TO THE POETS – Nina Tillery

I admired you, Joyce Kilmer, for thinking

a tree could wear a coronet of birds

lovelier than lines winding through patches

of citrons and cucumbers sprinkled

with silver sugar. Those were the years

when honeydew was damp on my earlobes

and I was not amazed at my own

lightness and joy. But I shop carefully

now when buying more than bread. I dig
for herbs and mango root, hoeing onion
patches, rows of carrots – a hungry
mouth filled with tartness when I spot

the hawk drifting and when the sundown
shadows turn pearl against my face. Tell me,
Joyce, when the hammers that built your house
lay quiet, did you not turn from the trees
to caress the tiny bronzed infant
burrowing into your chest?”
~~     

April -- Tax season, spring and National Poetry Month

 

PL, dining room at Couchwood

 

 

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR POETS?

 WHO AM I?

 I WAS BORN  ELEANORE MARIE IN 1912 IN BELGIUM, the daughter of a science historian.
 

 We moved to the US when I was four. I grew up in Cambridge Mass., and began writing poetry as a teenager.
 

 After a period of aspiring to be an actress in New York—and failing—I continued to write. I traveled to Europe frequently and met Virginia Woolf and W. H. Auden among others.
 

 My writing career took off during the 1930s—while I was in my early twenties. My first volume of poetry was “Encounters in April” and was published in 1937.                   [I hear now that copies are worth $88 on Amazon, and $150 and $200 on ABE books. All I can say is ‘wow!’ And let that be a lesson to you who are hearing this. All sorts of things can happen after you no longer live on this planet.]
 

 I also wrote a novel, which was published. Around this time, I worked as an instructor and lecturer at a number of schools. I even wrote an autobiographical volume at age 47. [Don’t ever think you’re too old to begin writing; you’re not. Why, I hear there’s a 93-year-old Missouri woman who had her first novel published recently!]
 

 I spent my later years in York, Maine, by the sea. I wrote four memoirs all told. My last book of poetry, “Coming Into Eighty” was published when I was 81. [I understand it is much cheaper to buy this volume online—even as little as one cent—plus shipping, of course.] Two years later, during the summer, I took my last breath.
 

 Here is one of my poems:

 

A GLASS OF WATER

 

Here is a glass of water from my well.

It tastes of rock and root and earth and rain;

It is the best I have, my only spell,

And it is cold, and better than champagne.

Perhaps someone will pass this house one day

To drink, and be restored, and go his way,

Someone in dark confusion as I was

When I drank down cold water in a glass,

Drank a transparent health to keep me sane,

After the bitter mood had gone again.

~~M. S.