|
Protecting the Environment
by
G David Schwartz
Betony, like metaphor and mnemonic, is a devise of beauty.
Angelica, the storied herb,
heals with taste; towers over mere mortal who transported the box, which weighed our shoulder as we trudged across the garden.
We felt a mauve pain of aconite disgust. The presence of just such an anguish allowed us to ignore the linear arch of numbing
tarragons.
O, shrewd potentilla that sent her leaves to cover flowers hovering under the forgotten bell of a former
embrace. Yarrows sing discoid florets into clustered rays. The bluish wood winds with woods into an oblong-toothed flowering.
Clouds of mustard in an agonized pitch settle over pathetic bone as pennyroyals imitate God's very own image of a saxophone.
Once, this was all sufficient to bleat out the blasphemous mistletoe of darkness.
One might sing, Purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Purge me among the hyssop, and I shall be in whorls; wash
me amid the mutlets, sessiles and corollas and I shall be clean to the calyxes. Now we only remember the sad mist of prayer:
Thickets of mint for bergamots breath. Thickets of mint for bergamots breath.
Towers of gentian and large webs of
comfrey once built picturesque castles and chicory winds and catnip breezes cleaned our consciences. The sky itself use to
dance on a coltsfoot. Now several brooms lay against the wall in slender branches, thin reminders of what was and what was
to come.
Gnarled green tributaries of rivers careened upon the soil and
turned molten. It is the garden, which
makes me speak this way. So much beauty gives you so much wisdom. The garden is gnarled with beauty, veined with wisdom. A
wild corming of diversity indulges in a voracious appetite for a thing as common as life. Jade puddles are still against the
outrages of shade, calmed by the sun, delight in rain.
My memories resemble a dartmouth jungle settling into a garden split by a path which, is truth be known, is conscious
of exist beyond itself as metaphoric instances of innumerable performances and ideals. On the fray, meleagris sigh. The armeniacum
grape hyacinth huddles together in spite of its languishing leaves. The cyclaminens cry into the earth. Elegans curse their
name; weep, wail and moan.
I grew up in these gardens, called "this garden." A flood of geraniums like a lewd steady
stream of sensuous mulatto stood as a canopy of gladiolus sylvestris in the mouth of brave evergreens shaded into heedlessness.
Orphanidea committed felonies as austere Dutch Fairs laughed aloud. Clusiana ceremoniously swayed. The dainty faces of purple
peruviana smiled graciously. Volumes of striped squall puschkinia radiated in velocity and lore, spouting tomes of pollen
and succulently reading themselves into the silver vestiges of the sun. All things were engaged in the hidden practice of
flummage. Everywhere we were aware of the rich,
delicious chocolate earth, source of everything visible.
A
young pool of orchids sprawled next to a grumbling saber-toothed lilac bush. Shivers of magenta tangled invisibly with pomegranate
heliotropes. Byzantines nodded in worship as trumpeting hybrid lilies lighted Havdalah candles with their eyes. Tomasinianus
designed paradigms for thoughts of nature. Luciliae scampered themselves. Clusters of the mariposa bled red, breed lavender,
born purple, bray about in orange. Ferns, which might have enlivened an angel's breath, stood next to perennials, which could
take an angel's breath away. Grapevines had led themselves into a patio beginning.
In the garden, typical application
of the word 'lush' was made to seem trite. And there is nothing worse than triteness.
With perfect fidelity, I remember
the words my father spoke to me as we stood among the lacy knotted foliage, which built a yearly network of silence. His words
were carefully chosen, and my ears greedy: "My son, a particular vague hand had spent goodly time upon this patch of earth."
G. David Schwartz - the
former president of Seedhouse, the online interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue.
Currently a volunteer at Drake Hospital in Cincinnati , Schwartz continues
to write. His new book, Midrash and Working Out Of The Book is now in stores or can be ordered.
Check out my book on Midrash:
http://hometown.aol.com/__121b_tdTFJGXZcJCPqQrUySnZ+KTxh35gb1iLtUVOk9VzwjAofilKR1T0xzcqXUHOGVmr
www.amazon.com/gp/product/1418489565/104-8454011-6722310?n=28315
|
