Snowdrops for the Soul

At least ten years ago, I planted a bulb garden in the center of my front lawn. I had lots of Spring bulbs carefully selected from three different garden catalogs and as many local garden stores. Visions of gently nodding pastel beauties danced in my mind's eye. This carefully tended plot thawed the following Spring and then, horrifyingly, filled over with water from the melting snows. I had forgotten that this was a low spot in our yard and so most of these flowers just rotted in place. When things dried up, I dug out some the slimy bulb remnants and tried transplanting them on higher ground. I didn't notice until later that some of the snowdrop bulbs had heroically flowered. Each year they come back and it's a nice reminder that the migrating birds will return and things will green up and flower again.

Here's a snowdrop poem from Louise Gluck's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, "The Wild Iris" (NY: Ecco, 1993) to celebrate the changing of the seasons.

SNOWDROPS

by Louise Glück

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

Got Cheese?

April is National Poetry Month and in celebration I cracked open my
copy of "Very Bad Poetry", edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras (NY:
Vintage, 1997, not for sale). From these pages I offer the following
poem by Canadian furniture maker and poet James McIntyre (1827-1906).
McIntyre created this dairy ditty after viewing a four ton cheese on
display at a Toronto exposition in this pre-television era. No word
on what type of cheese was so inspirational, but it musta been Gouda.

Ode on the Mammoth Cheese
(Weighing Over 7,000 Pounds)

We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at year ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze,
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.

Cows numerous as a swarm of bees,
Or as the leaves upon the trees,
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled, queen of cheese.

May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great world's show at Paris.

Of the youth beware of these,
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek, then songs or glees
We could not sing, oh! queen of cheese.

We'rt thou suspended from balloon,
You'd cast a shade even at noon,
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.


(I like to image Michael Ondaatje reading this.)