Saturday a friend and I went
to a nursery in Northern Virginia—she needed to buy a bag of dirt, and I just
wanted inspiration for a future garden. The day was quite cold, windy and grey,
but my soul came alive as we wandered up and down the aisles in the greenhouse
and then outside.
Herbs! Ground cover! Indoor-outdoor
dwarf lemon trees! Hedge material (“Get something with thorns”)! Oh, it was
like going to the animal shelter—I just wanted to hug everything and bring it
all home.
And, oddly, for the first time
in weeks, I didn’t feel a lot of joint pain after all the walking. There’s just
something about the beauty and resilience of plants that restores your equilibrium.
Despite the best efforts of humans to destroy it with war, pollution, urban
sprawl and just plain arrogant destruction, nature does her best to resist and
persist, showing us every Spring that she’ll take whatever bit is available—even
if it’s just a weak place in concrete—to push up life.
So today, in grateful
recognition of the recuperative power of gardens (whether designed by mortals
or immortals), I’ll share a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favorite
poets. Convert to Catholicism, Jesuit priest, exceptional poet of any age.
In the past you’ve had some of
his sonnets
for Easter, and his “Pied
Beauty”, which takes delight in the parti-colored elements of nature. But
for Gratitude Monday today, here’s “Spring”. Just “Spring”.
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels,
shoot long and lovely and
lush;
Thrush’s eggs look
little low heavens, and
thrush
Through the echoing timber does so
rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings
to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree
leaves and blooms, they
brush
The descending blue;
that blue is all in a
rush
With richness; the racing lambs too
have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this
joy?
A strain of the earth’s
sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before
it cloy,
Before it cloud,
Christ, lord, and sour with
sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and
boy,
Most, O maid’s child,
thy choice and worthy the winning.
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