Showing posts with label Gardening on Nothing a Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gardening on Nothing a Year. Show all posts

Monday, April 27, 2009

Monday Muse

I am slowly reading my way through the vintage gardening book, Gardening on Nothing A Year, by Mary S. Griffith. Each chapter begins with a poem and peppered throughout the book are these very sweet little sketches.

The poem that precedes Chapter IX is today's Monday Muse...

A Perfect Lady

I knew a girl who was so pure
She couldn't say the word Manure.
Indeed her modesty was such
She wouldn't pass a rabbit hutch;
And butterflies upon the wing
Would make her blush like anything.

The lady is a gardener now,
And all her views have changed somehow;
She squashes greenfly with her thumb,
And knows how little snowdrops come;
In fact the garden she has got,
Has broadened out her mind a lot.
--Reginald Arkell

Of course, this is not a practical look for any gardener, but I think it makes a cute accompanyment for the poem! Oh, to be sooo stylish in the garden -- though the heels would surely be hazardous!

In reality, I wake up very chipper, which is fortunate because I hit the ground running...let the dogs out, make the coffee, run outside to let the geese out before they wake the neighborhood, come back inside, feed the dogs, feed the cats, THEN I get to pour a cup and perhaps drink it before it gets cold -- sigh! THEN, it's out to the garden to give it a morning drink...dressed in whatever happened to be handy enough to throw on!
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Monday, April 6, 2009

Monday Muse -- Thanks to Esther!

It's amazing how some things just fall into place when you are looking for inspiration -- like finding my little frog yesterday.

Recently, I began reading a blog I found on Blotanical called Esther's Boring Garden Blog, written by Esther Montgomery in the UK (It's anything BUT boring, by the way). Today, she mentioned that many garden bloggers apparently follow a tradition called Monday Muse, whereby they post a poem on that day.

It just so happens that I am reading a vintage gardening book called "Gardening on Nothing a Year" written by Mary S. Griffith and published back in 1937. There, when I turned the page to Chapter IV, I found my inspiration! It begins with this poem, written by Christopher Morley:


My Favorite Flowers

The yellow orchid why discuss,
When you can eat asparagus!
What stained-glass window could repeat
The red-veined leafage of the beet?

What delicately mottled green
Is in the humble, honest bean,
And what a balm for sin and grief
The crisp and curly lettuce leaf!

The corn, in green, translucent files,
Shimmers like cathedral aisles,
The cabbage that the frost has touched
Is like a pigeon's throat unsmutched.

An onion, if you hold your nose,
Is marvelous as any rose!

What a wonderful little poem! Vegetables ARE my favorite flowers at this point in my gardening life! And this is my Monday Muse! Thanks Esther!