Brown Heart Beating

Several years ago I had a dream in which our garden was alive, a huge heart beating, the presence underneath it brown and, yes, masculine. I know the earth is supposed to be Mother, but this presence was more like Father. Whatever it was, it was ready to come forth and begin another season. Our small garden is a living presence, and this spring it has gone wild with greens.

Cabbages look like big birds about to fly off!

If I were getting married right now, I'd have a lettuce bouquet!

Bulls blood beets are coming along.

The Green Man oversees it all. Was he the presence I dreamed about, his heart beating underneath the soil, ready for spring?

Whoever he was, I lift a glass of Shiraz to him and to the garden. Salud!

THE GARDEN: an update

I simply couldn't resist going outside before lunch to take a few photos of our garden today, so here they are, beginning with the heroic cabbage!

"In my grandmother's garden grew cabbages

so big I dreamed they could fly...."

She grew mustard greens, too. She added them to her turnip greens pot. A memorable combination. She didn't grow lettuce, though. Or spinach. Or, horrors, broccoli! That would not have made my grandfather happy.

The mountain laurel is blooming now. And the iris!

Our spirits are alive again

That had been frozen in ennui.

Winter, say a short goodbye,

There's not one reason you should remain:

Summer has ordered his footmen in.

Fred Chappell, from Spring Garden: New & Selected Poems

Vernal Equinox: A Chance for Healthcare Reform

(Sunrise on the first day of Spring)

On this Sunday, the day after the Vernal Equinox, when our Congress has the chance to pass reforms that so many former presidents, all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt, have attempted, I am hoping that the distortions, outright lies, and the viciousness that have accompanied this "debate," including the chanting of the "N word" at black legislators and the spitting on another of them, will fail and that the better nature of American politics will prevail so that here in Jackson County friends I love will no longer have to fear losing insurance coverage when they develop live-threatening illness.

Here's a quote from one of my favorite columnists, Gail Collins.

"We live in an era in which the power of the new hypermedia is so intense and politics so rabid that it’s almost impossible for Congress to do anything more difficult than tax cuts or highway construction. Yet, here’s this huge, complicated, controversial reform — bigger than any domestic program in decades.

If it passes, the short-term political consequences are unknowable. But in 10 years, people will look back in amazement that we once lived in a time when Americans couldn’t get health care coverage if they were sick, when insurance companies could cut off your benefits for being sick, and when run-of-the-mill serious illnesses routinely destroyed families’ financial security."

I wish you a lovely spring. Our early garden is in--spinach, beets, cabbage, broccoli. We are waiting now for the predicted rain to come and water it.