Sierra Poetry in My Garden
It is hard to focus this morning as there is so much going on in the garden. After months of living under tarps, the porch furniture is once again bathing in sunshine, awaiting its first gathering of neighbors who have now reemerged from hibernation, eager to share news and toast the return of spring to the Sierra foothills. Outdoor projects put off for a season are underway in earnest, and I can barely contain my eagerness to get my hands and feet into the garden to see what is coming up.
I literally take a step up and weave my way through the heart of our raised redwood flower bed, careful not to step on emerging peonies. One peony at a time I remove eleven large garden cloches that have protected their pink tips and stems over the past month. A week of March spring-like weather was then followed by a week of rain, hail, and snow that spoiled my mood to get into the garden. But now like the shipwrecked traveler Gulliver who wandered amidst the little Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels, I am in the flowerbed, treading ever-so-carefully at the edges of their tiny island world, removing the cloches and setting each peony plant free to grow tall and strong. It’s already time to fertilize and stake the emerging peonies before they grow weighty with fat blossoms and attract tiny ants that nibble at the sweet sap that seals their closed seams, finally releasing the gorgeous blossoms in late May.
On my garden stroll, I cut off the dead ends of lavender plants that have spread throughout the flowerbed along with various varieties of thyme that make their home at its edges. At the garden’s heart, hellebores are in full flower after arriving as they always do during the season of Lent. They are one of the garden’s early harbingers of spring, growing tall even when snow is on the ground. Unafraid. Refusing to be beaten down even when this gardener’s spirits sink low and grow impatient for winter to be finally over.
On April 9th when Sierra Poetry month activities were underway throughout Nevada County, I was pulled out of my garden by local author Shirley Dickard who had invited me to participate in a poetry workshop taking place that Wednesday afternoon. For the past two years, my life has been defined by daily visits with my darling Kit at the Lodge—the nursing and rehabilitation center in Grass Valley that has become his home away from home and thus mine as well for three hours a day. The idea of spending an afternoon with writers and local poets was an invitation I simply could not resist.
Led by the multi-talented writer Sands Hill, the group that assembled that day shared their stories while enjoying a glass of wine and hors d’oeuvres. We then got to the task at hand. Prompted by Sands, we wrote poems following her prompts, then stood and read our creations aloud. Our first prompt was to write the letters S P R I N G T I M E vertically down the left-hand side of a blank page. We had seven minutes to create a poem written across each line, beginning with the letter S of the word SPRINGTIME and ending with the final letter E. My poem took its lead from the walk amongst the peonies that I’d just taken in my Sierra garden.
All that I needed was Sand’s gentle prod to pick up my pen and unearth the poem that lay between the lines of the word Springtime.
Some days amaze me when in the garden
Peonies poke their tips above the snow
Raising the hope of spring in late March
In a week when snow surprises us all.
Now, I breath in, breath out and
Get ready for more winter. But instead—
This is when I hang on to hope
In these moments when spring peonies
Make their way up to reach for sunlight,
Ever inspiring me to keep moving…
…and not give up.
Poetry lives within us, just as the tiny footprints buried in a winter garden do. Energized by reconnecting with fellow writers and poets that afternoon, I’m now adding new plants to our Sierra garden that will return to greet me in springs to come. After a trip to a local nursery, I returned with a giant Spanish lavender bush that will winter over in a large terra cotta pot on the deck. A tall, rose-like pinkish white camelia and a rhododendron in shades that melt from soft pink into deep fuchsia are now resident in pots on the deck. Once planted, they will bring new life to a row of old rhododendrons and azaleas that I’ve been nursing back to life.
Springtime is now here to stay, and at long last the garden and I are breathing again.
