Come on in. You are welcome to refresh yourself – or sulk, as you wish – in my woodland medicinal garden, nestled under a sky-ward leaping linden tree. My writer’s mind and hand are apparently on spring break,
In Perpetual Spring
Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies
and trip over the roots
of a sweet gum tree,
in search of medieval
plants whose leaves,
when they drop off
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they
plop into water.
Suddenly the archetypal
human desire for peace
with every other species
wells up in you. The lion
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,
queen of the weeds, revives
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt
there is a leaf to cure it.
Source: Bitter Angel: Poems (1990)
Shade canopy: Linden tree
Top row: Black Cohosh, Greater Celandine, Solomon’s Seal, Wild Ginger
Bottom row: Twinleaf, Dwarf Comfrey, Golden Ragwort, Black Cohosh
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