Not a very promising beginning to a blog--it will improve. I promise! Imagine if you were the co-owner of a fantastic 30 acre garden where you'd expended enormous passion, talent and effort (let's not even talk about resources) for 30 years...and you expect that it will all be gone in a year and a half?
December, even in Buck's County, Pennsylvania is not the best time to visit a garden: even one filled with an astonishning range of sculpture. I know classic antique marble ladies aren't everyboy's cup of tea, but those of us of Greek ancestry approve heartily!
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| Bruce Gangawer |
Here is a more appropriate photograph of the remarkable designer of this wonderful garden. He and his colleagues also manage an outstanding nursery and numerous gardens and estates in the region: I imagine whatever transpires in the next year and a half at Paxson hill, he will do just fine. Although imagine carrying the memories of Paxson hill: marcescent for sure they will be forever for him!
Okay, Okay! If you've made it this far I figure you're probably ready for a poem I wrote, probably 30 or more years ago, but which I've kept kicking around. I called it "in Praise of Oaks" but a better name I'll change it to now is Marcescent: I guess this will be my Christmas card for the year!
I love these miserly, these stingy trees
the willow, cottonwood and mountain ash.Especially the permutations of the oak.
For when your normal tree loses its leaves
and snows and winds and time manage to scratch
them bare as babies, colorless as smoke.
the thrifty cottonwood still hoards some gold,
the rowan often stays a healthy green.
and oaks are famous for remembering,
keeping their leaves, like memories they hold
dearer than passing fashions. And the sheen
of willows greening early in the spring
cannot compare with their reluctant yellow
clinging leaves, passionately lingering
beyond your ordinary kinds of plants.
My love, you’re just like them. I too their fellow
In detesting the dingaling
Inevitability of time, which rants
us into wintry emptiness.
No matter what the future holds or casts,
let’s go into it reluctantly
savoring each moment, heavily blessed
with the brazen burden of our pasts.
shedding little, with pain and constantly
grasping, holding together all that’s best.
I could not agree more - an astonishing complex, imaginative, horticulturally daring and diverse place. I could not believe I had never heard of it when visiting with the Fling this September. Bravo and I hope it has continued life. Jill Nooney
ReplyDeleteSo what's happening in a year and a half??
ReplyDeleteI hope it will be saved somehow. Even at this time of year when many people might find it less charming than in spring, summer, and fall, it is gorgeous! I have never seen it, so among the reasons it should be saved are some very selfish ones of course.
ReplyDelete