One of the more enjoyable aspects of spring is, of course, the budding of leaves on the trees and the return of flowers. The mater spends a considerable amount of time pottering in the garden bedding up things or messing about with bits of rock and suchlike. The results are pleasing and, living in an apartment in the middle of Seattle, I miss the clumps of irises and such.
Consequently, I’ve been given some thought to doing some container gardening on the apartment balcony. Yes, I know, it means one more thing for me to deal with, but it would be nice to have some flowers and things to enjoy. Plus, it’d be an excellent opportunity to grow a tomato plant or two, perhaps some salad greens, and herbs as well. Why buy them if you can grow them?
Plus, in the summer, since my apartment is west facing, it gets very, very warm. If I had a trellis with something on it to help block the sun, it’d probably cool things down. Pehaps I could write a poem, “This Clematis Trellis Bower My Prison” or something.
I know my friend Gitte (cf. Talk Nerdy to Me) has had some success with this. I shall have to confer with her. I also purchased a handy little book on container gardening that I’ll work with next month.
Here’s a poem for you to enjoy by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
God’s Grandeur
| THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God. | |
| It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; | |
| It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil | |
| Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? | |
| Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; | 5 |
| And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; | |
| And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil | |
| Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. | |
| And for all this, nature is never spent; | |
| There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; | 10 |
| And though the last lights off the black West went | |
| Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— | |
| Because the Holy Ghost over the bent | |
| World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. |
