I've been remiss in updating the garden blog, so much is going on in my life and the political blog, the poetry blog, the entertainment blog, and the quote for the day blogs are all time consuming enough.
Anyway, this morning I linked to a great resource for "how to talk to global climate change skeptics", and thought to myself, this is off topic, and I reallly need to get back to my garden blogging roots.
Time for a New Year's Resolution... My garden blog will soon be reverted to gardening and my ecological concerns will be posted on my new garden politics blog..."migreenroof". The link can be found over there on the right where it says "view my complete profile." Click on that link and the list of some related blogs (no not all of the above), including the new Michigan Green Roof blog, will appear.
Herbies might be interested in The Backyard Herbalist blog. It's a public portal for a Yahoo Group for the MSU Extension Herb Garden project. You don't have to be a Master Gardener or a Herb Society member to volunteer there, it is a demonstration herb garden for the community. Just contact me and we'll talk about it.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
For GCHS members...
I started and will moderate a (GCHS members only) Yahoo Group for the Genesee County Herb Society. You are invited to join if you have paid your 2007 GCHS dues to Ulrike. Welcome!
(FYI: You'll need an account with Yahoo, but it's EASY, and FREE to sign up. You just make up a "screen name" and a private password)
Click here to join gcherbs
(FYI: You'll need an account with Yahoo, but it's EASY, and FREE to sign up. You just make up a "screen name" and a private password)
Click here to join gcherbs
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Planting a Sequoia
by Dana Gioia
All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
And the sky above us stayed the dull gray
Of an old year coming to an end.
In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son’s birth--
An olive or a fig tree--a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.
I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my father’s orchard,
A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs,
A promise of new fruit in other autumns.
But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,
Defying the practical custom of our fathers,
Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant’s birth cord,
All that remains above earth of a first-born son,
A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.
We will give you what we can — our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.
And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,
Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,
His mother’s beauty ashes in the air,
I want you to stand among strangers, all young and emphemeral to you,
Silently keeping the secret of your birth.
All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
And the sky above us stayed the dull gray
Of an old year coming to an end.
In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son’s birth--
An olive or a fig tree--a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.
I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my father’s orchard,
A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs,
A promise of new fruit in other autumns.
But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,
Defying the practical custom of our fathers,
Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant’s birth cord,
All that remains above earth of a first-born son,
A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.
We will give you what we can — our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.
And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,
Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,
His mother’s beauty ashes in the air,
I want you to stand among strangers, all young and emphemeral to you,
Silently keeping the secret of your birth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)