I almost never read the poems in the New Yorker because I almost never understand them. For many years they were the only ones I was exposed to and so I thought that I wasn't smart or educated enough to understand poetry and maybe that's true but I'll just quietly say that I can make my way through quite a few things now and still find New Yorker poetry puzzling for the most part. Not in a good way. But last month I accidentally read this one and thank goodness because I like it very very much.
The Gardener by Linda Pastan
He's out rescuing his fallen hollies
after the renegade snowstorm,
sawing their wounded limbs off
quite mercilessly (I think of the scene
in "King's Row," the young soldier waking
to find his legs gone).
He's tying up young bamboo-
their delicate tresses litter the driveway-
shovelling a door through the snow
to free the imprisoned azaleas.
I half expect him to tend his trees
with aspirin and soup, the gardener
who finds in destruction
the very reason to carry on;
who would look at the ruins
of Eden and tell the hovering angel
to put down his sword,
there was work to be done.
*(picture taken last spring - it'll be along soon)
I like that very very much too. Thank you x
Posted by: davyh | January 21, 2011 at 01:10 PM
I've spent my life surrounded by gardeners and have been despaired of across the board as none of it has ever rubbed off on me at all other than the bit about picking things to eat.
Posted by: adam | January 22, 2011 at 12:29 AM
Lovely.
Posted by: Agnes | January 23, 2011 at 12:23 PM
Adam, as a city girl I've never done anything advanced like trying to grow food, just pretty flowers in pots. I took a more general message from this one :) x.
MrH and Agnes, I'm very pleased to know you liked it too x.
Posted by: Greer | January 23, 2011 at 08:29 PM