Poetry and Gardening

I'm finding that journalling in this blog encourages me to read more poetry. I'm not sure why, but for once I'm just going to flow with the experience without questioning it further.

Recently I've been reading Stanley Kunitz's The Wild Braid. There are a few phrases and bits that just captivate me....

"...among the sodden seethe of leaves...." (p. 32, from "The Testing Tree")

"...In the haze of afternoon,
while the air flowed saffron,..." (p.35, from "The Testing Tree")

"I conceived of the garden as a poem in stanzas." (p.72, from "Stanzas")

"We could say the playcodon is rhyming with the thalictrum." (p. 74, from "The Gate to Hell")
(Isn't that a cool idea - plants rhyming with each other in the garden? Repeating the theme of color or texture or height. So much more vivid to say they are rhyming!)

"Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses...." (p. 139, from "The Round")

And some of the images in my garden remind me of visual poetry:

the rich royal blue velvet of the Salvia blooms against the cool gray weathered fence

fragile, purple-streaked, snow white blooms of the peacock ginger emerging daintily from the coarse brown mulch

fresh green froth of the maidenhair fern.

Okay. Well, maybe I DO see why I'm being more attracted to poetry these days!