2019 Programs
Unless otherwise indicated, programs take place at Gaiety Hollow, 545 Mission St. SE, Salem, OR 97302
THE GARDENER Private Movie Screening
Monday, April, 8, 7:15pm
This film features influential gardener Frank Cabot, the founder of the Garden Conservancy, as he takes us on a summertime tour of Quatre Vents, his private 20-acre English style garden in Quebec.
Salem Cinema 1127 Broadway St. NE, Salem, OR
Tickets $12 in advance, $15 at the door:
Monday, April, 8, 7:15pm
This film features influential gardener Frank Cabot, the founder of the Garden Conservancy, as he takes us on a summertime tour of Quatre Vents, his private 20-acre English style garden in Quebec.
Salem Cinema 1127 Broadway St. NE, Salem, OR
Tickets $12 in advance, $15 at the door:
LUCY HARDIMAN LECTURE
Wednesday, April 17 11 am
Rooted in Place: The Evolution of Garden Design in the Pacific Northwest
Loucks Auditorium at Salem Public Library
585 Liberty St. SE, Salem OR
Ticket information to come.
A longtime Northwest horticultural treasure, Lucy Hardiman is a nationally recognized garden designer, writer, teacher and speaker as well as the owner and principal of the award-winning Perennial Partners, a collaborative garden design group in Portland, Oregon.
Wednesday, April 17 11 am
Rooted in Place: The Evolution of Garden Design in the Pacific Northwest
Loucks Auditorium at Salem Public Library
585 Liberty St. SE, Salem OR
Ticket information to come.
A longtime Northwest horticultural treasure, Lucy Hardiman is a nationally recognized garden designer, writer, teacher and speaker as well as the owner and principal of the award-winning Perennial Partners, a collaborative garden design group in Portland, Oregon.
CLOCHE WORKSHOP
Sunday, May 5, 9-12pm
In this workshop you will embellish a cloche like women in the era of Elizabeth Lordand Edith Schryver wore, but with a modern twist. Hats will be providedfor you to add a floral motif using felt, ribbon, beads, and other materials . A fun project for both experienced crafters and novices.
Cost per participant: $45
All materials and a snack are included.
About the instructor: Camilla S. Haneberg is a fine artist and art educator. She is currently a member of the 2-D Art faculty at Chemeketa CommunityCollege.
Sunday, May 5, 9-12pm
In this workshop you will embellish a cloche like women in the era of Elizabeth Lordand Edith Schryver wore, but with a modern twist. Hats will be providedfor you to add a floral motif using felt, ribbon, beads, and other materials . A fun project for both experienced crafters and novices.
Cost per participant: $45
All materials and a snack are included.
About the instructor: Camilla S. Haneberg is a fine artist and art educator. She is currently a member of the 2-D Art faculty at Chemeketa CommunityCollege.
BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATION WORKSHOP
May 18-19, 10am-4pm both days
During the two days, participants will learn the basic in understanding and using materials, drawing using the tracing frame, transferring a drawing, the importance of lighting, making drawings 3D and watercolor techniques including color mixing. Participants will also learn what makes botanical illustration different and special while bringing your botanical observation skills to a new level.
Cost: $175 for two days. Includes materials (see below).
Workshop Format
We will follow a step method enabling each participant to progress according to his/her own skill, speed and objectives for the workshop. Expect to do lots of exercises to gain needed technical skills such as using graphite and paint to make 2D objects into 3D on the page and making color wheels by mixing primary colors. Participants will bring home a drawing or more depending how far they get in the process. This workshop is more about learning skills than producing paintings.
Workshop Restrictions
This workshop assumes no prior drawing or painting experience, although it helps. However, as participants must be able to follow detailed instructions and complete exercises, the workshop is not open to those aged 14 or younger.
Required Materials
All required artistic materials will be provided.
They include paper, pencils, tracing frames, rulers, erasers, paints, palettes, brushes and mageyes (magnifying glasses) and various botanical specimens will be provided. If participants have their own water color paints, brushes and paper, they may bring them as well.
Participants should bring a notebook to take notes and a sack lunch for each day.
Beverages and light snacks will be provided.
The Instructor Jeanne Debons teaches botanical illustration classes at her Oregon studio as well as at Central Oregon Community College and other venues. She received a Diploma of Botanical Illustration from the English Gardening School in London in 2005 as well as biology and botany degrees (BS, MS) from the College of Environmental Science and Forestry in New York. She also has a PhD in Botany and Plant Pathology from Oregon State University. In addition to teaching, Jeanne paints on commission and sells paintings, cards and limited-edition prints of her botanical illustrations. She has participated in exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally and her work has been published and has appeared on the covers of books. She is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists and the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.
More information can be found at www.jeannedebons.com.
May 18-19, 10am-4pm both days
During the two days, participants will learn the basic in understanding and using materials, drawing using the tracing frame, transferring a drawing, the importance of lighting, making drawings 3D and watercolor techniques including color mixing. Participants will also learn what makes botanical illustration different and special while bringing your botanical observation skills to a new level.
Cost: $175 for two days. Includes materials (see below).
Workshop Format
We will follow a step method enabling each participant to progress according to his/her own skill, speed and objectives for the workshop. Expect to do lots of exercises to gain needed technical skills such as using graphite and paint to make 2D objects into 3D on the page and making color wheels by mixing primary colors. Participants will bring home a drawing or more depending how far they get in the process. This workshop is more about learning skills than producing paintings.
Workshop Restrictions
This workshop assumes no prior drawing or painting experience, although it helps. However, as participants must be able to follow detailed instructions and complete exercises, the workshop is not open to those aged 14 or younger.
Required Materials
All required artistic materials will be provided.
They include paper, pencils, tracing frames, rulers, erasers, paints, palettes, brushes and mageyes (magnifying glasses) and various botanical specimens will be provided. If participants have their own water color paints, brushes and paper, they may bring them as well.
Participants should bring a notebook to take notes and a sack lunch for each day.
Beverages and light snacks will be provided.
The Instructor Jeanne Debons teaches botanical illustration classes at her Oregon studio as well as at Central Oregon Community College and other venues. She received a Diploma of Botanical Illustration from the English Gardening School in London in 2005 as well as biology and botany degrees (BS, MS) from the College of Environmental Science and Forestry in New York. She also has a PhD in Botany and Plant Pathology from Oregon State University. In addition to teaching, Jeanne paints on commission and sells paintings, cards and limited-edition prints of her botanical illustrations. She has participated in exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally and her work has been published and has appeared on the covers of books. She is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists and the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.
More information can be found at www.jeannedebons.com.
1st Annual NEIGHBORHOOD GARDEN TOUR
Saturday and Sunday, June 1-2
In the Englewood Neighborhood, Salem Oregon
Saturday and Sunday, June 1-2
In the Englewood Neighborhood, Salem Oregon
PRESSED FLOWER GREETING CARD WORKSHOP
Sunday, June 23, 9am-12pm
Create greeting cards using dried flowers from the Gaiety Hollow garden. You will take home five handmade cards constructed from watercolors, tissue paper and pressed flowers. What a fun project to do with a friend!
Cost per participant: $45
All materials and a snack are included.
About the instructor: Camilla S. Haneberg is a fine artist and art educator. She is currently a member of the 2-D Art faculty at Chemeketa CommunityCollege.
Sunday, June 23, 9am-12pm
Create greeting cards using dried flowers from the Gaiety Hollow garden. You will take home five handmade cards constructed from watercolors, tissue paper and pressed flowers. What a fun project to do with a friend!
Cost per participant: $45
All materials and a snack are included.
About the instructor: Camilla S. Haneberg is a fine artist and art educator. She is currently a member of the 2-D Art faculty at Chemeketa CommunityCollege.
POETRY WORKSHOP
Saturday and Sunday, September 14 & 15
We will study examples of poems involving plants in various ways, identify plants in the garden at Gaiety Hollow for possible incorporation into poems, make notes on our observations, do research on the chosen plants, draft poems, discuss and critique the drafts, revise the drafts, and compile the revised poems into a workshop anthology.
In the morning of day 1, we’ll study published plant poems, discussing how they incorporate scientific information and vocabulary; then we’ll explore the garden to find plants to write into our poems, making notes on how they look, smell, etc. In the afternoon, we’ll do research in books and online; then draft poems. In the morning of day 2, we’ll discuss the poem drafts in small groups, then revise them. After lunch, we’ll share the revised drafts, then plan, assemble, print, and duplicate an anthology of our poems-in-progress.
Booklet of sample poems, botany textbooks and garden books to be shared for research
Notebook for preliminary writing and poem drafts (required), portable computer for further writing, drafting, and revising (optional, if available)
Students bring own sack lunch, beverages, snacks provided.
Cost: $100 for 2 days.
High School age and up
Eleanor Berry holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto and has taught writing and literature at colleges in Wisconsin and at Willamette University.Her poetry and essays have been widely published in journals and anthologies. Two books of her poems have been published by Oregon independent publishers, Green November(Traprock Books, 2007) and No Constant Hues(Turnstone Books of Oregon, 2015), and a chapbook,Only So Far, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Press. She is a past president of the Oregon Poetry Association and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.
eberry@wvi.com,
Saturday and Sunday, September 14 & 15
We will study examples of poems involving plants in various ways, identify plants in the garden at Gaiety Hollow for possible incorporation into poems, make notes on our observations, do research on the chosen plants, draft poems, discuss and critique the drafts, revise the drafts, and compile the revised poems into a workshop anthology.
In the morning of day 1, we’ll study published plant poems, discussing how they incorporate scientific information and vocabulary; then we’ll explore the garden to find plants to write into our poems, making notes on how they look, smell, etc. In the afternoon, we’ll do research in books and online; then draft poems. In the morning of day 2, we’ll discuss the poem drafts in small groups, then revise them. After lunch, we’ll share the revised drafts, then plan, assemble, print, and duplicate an anthology of our poems-in-progress.
Booklet of sample poems, botany textbooks and garden books to be shared for research
Notebook for preliminary writing and poem drafts (required), portable computer for further writing, drafting, and revising (optional, if available)
Students bring own sack lunch, beverages, snacks provided.
Cost: $100 for 2 days.
High School age and up
Eleanor Berry holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto and has taught writing and literature at colleges in Wisconsin and at Willamette University.Her poetry and essays have been widely published in journals and anthologies. Two books of her poems have been published by Oregon independent publishers, Green November(Traprock Books, 2007) and No Constant Hues(Turnstone Books of Oregon, 2015), and a chapbook,Only So Far, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Press. She is a past president of the Oregon Poetry Association and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.
eberry@wvi.com,
SKETCHING IN THE GARDEN with Janet Parker
Saturday and Sunday, October 5 & 6, 10am-4pm
Come and sketch the beautiful plants, flowers, architectural
details, insects - every delightful thing you see - in the Lord
& Schryver garden of Gaiety Hollow. Janet will give some
basic instructions for drawing botanical subjects, including
demonstrations using a variety of mediums such as graphite,
colored pencil, pen & ink, and watercolor.
This will be a weekend of "smelling the roses." Slow down and take
in the garden with all your senses, and using your favorite medium (or
experimenting with several) sketch and make notes of what you see (and what you hear, smell, and feel.) Some of the flowers that will likely be in bloom are: Cleome, Cosmos, Zinnias, Nicotiana alata – Japanese tobacco, Nigella, and Limonium – statice.
Cost: $250
Janet Parker is graphic designer, botanical illustrator and landscape painter. Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1955, she studied painting and printmaking at the University of Kansas before moving to New Orleans in 1975. While in New Orleans she studied with watercolorist Kathy (Katalin) Gergo. Janet moved to New York City in 1986 to complete a BFA in Communication Design at Parsons School of Design. After graduating, she worked for three years in the editorial design studio, WBMG, under Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser. She has been an art director for such magazines as Time, Newsweek, Art & Antiques, and GQ. During the first of her nine years as a book designer for Workman Publishing, she also taught Communication Design at Parsons School of Design. From March, 2009 until August 2012 she was the art director at Tin House, publisher of books of fiction and non-fiction and of a quarterly literary magazine, which is based in Portland, Oregon. She is currently focusing on drawing and painting, and designing a series of classes in botanical art.Her drawings and illustrations have appeared in Horticulture magazine, gallery shows in New York, N.Y., and St. Michaels, MD., and are in private collections.
Saturday and Sunday, October 5 & 6, 10am-4pm
Come and sketch the beautiful plants, flowers, architectural
details, insects - every delightful thing you see - in the Lord
& Schryver garden of Gaiety Hollow. Janet will give some
basic instructions for drawing botanical subjects, including
demonstrations using a variety of mediums such as graphite,
colored pencil, pen & ink, and watercolor.
This will be a weekend of "smelling the roses." Slow down and take
in the garden with all your senses, and using your favorite medium (or
experimenting with several) sketch and make notes of what you see (and what you hear, smell, and feel.) Some of the flowers that will likely be in bloom are: Cleome, Cosmos, Zinnias, Nicotiana alata – Japanese tobacco, Nigella, and Limonium – statice.
Cost: $250
Janet Parker is graphic designer, botanical illustrator and landscape painter. Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1955, she studied painting and printmaking at the University of Kansas before moving to New Orleans in 1975. While in New Orleans she studied with watercolorist Kathy (Katalin) Gergo. Janet moved to New York City in 1986 to complete a BFA in Communication Design at Parsons School of Design. After graduating, she worked for three years in the editorial design studio, WBMG, under Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser. She has been an art director for such magazines as Time, Newsweek, Art & Antiques, and GQ. During the first of her nine years as a book designer for Workman Publishing, she also taught Communication Design at Parsons School of Design. From March, 2009 until August 2012 she was the art director at Tin House, publisher of books of fiction and non-fiction and of a quarterly literary magazine, which is based in Portland, Oregon. She is currently focusing on drawing and painting, and designing a series of classes in botanical art.Her drawings and illustrations have appeared in Horticulture magazine, gallery shows in New York, N.Y., and St. Michaels, MD., and are in private collections.
GLASS SLIDES OF HISTORIC GARDENS
with Suzanne Bishop and Matthew Cowan
Thursday, November 7, 7-8:30pm
The Lord & Schryver Conservancy and Bush House Museum are co-hosting a special presentation of the Oregon Historical Society of an original, narrated glass lantern slide show on the history of 20th Century gardens. Originally created for the Portland Garden Club, the show consists of slides that are hand-colored and screened using an original 1930’s lantern slide projector.
The glass slides used in the presentation were created by George C. Stephenson (1866-1940) on behalf of the Portland Garden Club and were hand-colored. Many of the slides document famed historical Portland gardens, including the Kerr gardens (now Elk Rock Garden at the Bishop’s Close) and the Frank and Meier estates.
There is a beauty and depth to hand-colored lantern slides. This is a unique opportunity for the public to see original glass slides projected on historic equipment, as Matthew and Suzanne chronicle the history around the images.
Background on Lantern Slides
The lantern slide had its origins in 17th century optical devices, which came to be known as “magic lanterns.” The earliest slides were hand-painted images on glass. By 1850, slides were beginning to be reproduced from negatives and sold commercially, mostly black and white images that were then hand-colored. Do-it-yourself kits were also sold, and amateur photographers, museum, and universities often created their own lantern slides for entertainment or education. Photographic type lantern slides reached the peak of their popularity in the first third of the 20th century. The Oregon Historical Society curates a large collection of lantern slides, documenting many aspects of the early history of the state.
Cost: $5
Suzanne Bishop is a member of the Portland Garden Club and on the Garden Club of America’s Garden History & Design Committee. Suzanne will narrate the slide show. Suzanne will narrate the slide show on the history of (early) twentieth century gardens in Portland.
Matthew Cowan is the Archivist for Moving Images & Photography at the Oregon Historical
with Suzanne Bishop and Matthew Cowan
Thursday, November 7, 7-8:30pm
The Lord & Schryver Conservancy and Bush House Museum are co-hosting a special presentation of the Oregon Historical Society of an original, narrated glass lantern slide show on the history of 20th Century gardens. Originally created for the Portland Garden Club, the show consists of slides that are hand-colored and screened using an original 1930’s lantern slide projector.
The glass slides used in the presentation were created by George C. Stephenson (1866-1940) on behalf of the Portland Garden Club and were hand-colored. Many of the slides document famed historical Portland gardens, including the Kerr gardens (now Elk Rock Garden at the Bishop’s Close) and the Frank and Meier estates.
There is a beauty and depth to hand-colored lantern slides. This is a unique opportunity for the public to see original glass slides projected on historic equipment, as Matthew and Suzanne chronicle the history around the images.
Background on Lantern Slides
The lantern slide had its origins in 17th century optical devices, which came to be known as “magic lanterns.” The earliest slides were hand-painted images on glass. By 1850, slides were beginning to be reproduced from negatives and sold commercially, mostly black and white images that were then hand-colored. Do-it-yourself kits were also sold, and amateur photographers, museum, and universities often created their own lantern slides for entertainment or education. Photographic type lantern slides reached the peak of their popularity in the first third of the 20th century. The Oregon Historical Society curates a large collection of lantern slides, documenting many aspects of the early history of the state.
Cost: $5
Suzanne Bishop is a member of the Portland Garden Club and on the Garden Club of America’s Garden History & Design Committee. Suzanne will narrate the slide show. Suzanne will narrate the slide show on the history of (early) twentieth century gardens in Portland.
Matthew Cowan is the Archivist for Moving Images & Photography at the Oregon Historical
Gaiety Hollow Inspires Artworks
Paint The Town, a project of Artist in Action (AiA) included Gaiety Hollow in their list of plein air inspirational art locations in 2018.
Thank you to the following artists for letting us post their paintings that resulted from their visit to Gaiety Hollow.
Top:
Gaiety Hollow Poppies by CC. Willow
acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"
Bottom:
Lord and Schryver Garden by Gay Hopkins
acrylic on canvas, 11" x 14"
These works are for sale. Please contact us if you are interested.
Paint The Town, a project of Artist in Action (AiA) included Gaiety Hollow in their list of plein air inspirational art locations in 2018.
Thank you to the following artists for letting us post their paintings that resulted from their visit to Gaiety Hollow.
Top:
Gaiety Hollow Poppies by CC. Willow
acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"
Bottom:
Lord and Schryver Garden by Gay Hopkins
acrylic on canvas, 11" x 14"
These works are for sale. Please contact us if you are interested.
|
Garden-inspired poems from visits to Gaiety Hollow
by the Willamette Valley Poetry Society
Elizabeth and Edith of Gaiety Hollow, 1932
~ Elizabeth Lord (1887-1976) and Edith Schryver (1901-1984).
~ Gaiety Hollow: their home, the house placed to enhance
their garden, one of 250 they designed together.
I.
Elizabeth, taller, might’ve reached the breakfast preserves, hung linens
on the clothesline. Perhaps Edith set their table beneath the window,
early northern light giving shape and color to backyard blooms,
paths dividing into rooms lilac, camellia, olive-yellow, thornless rose,
grape vine, pink clematis entwined atop the pergola’s beams; a shaded, backless
bench tucked beside small trees and ferns, a bright green riot;
a friendly garden shed within a separate, sunlit space, for tools and rakes
to tend and mulch the plants. The yard there, rubbed down to earth--
by working men? or, by the owner-women, in slippers and peignoirs?
II.
Just next door, Elizabeth nursed her ailing mother. During years
of witnessing decline, did the garden’s birdsong and promise
bring, with every glimpse, a released breath?
When Elizabeth’s turn for help arrived, did Edith offer care? We only
speculate, the women having burned their personal papers. The full account
is lost to us, a stony pact within their legacy, their era guarding privacy.
III.
We have been told of Edith’s way, when aging and alone: she gazed at
the garden from her kitchen-window seat … perhaps, at the hollyhock,
stalk of creamy bells—in Edith’s room of memory, a taller, more precious bloom.
Ada Molinoff
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
by the Willamette Valley Poetry Society
Elizabeth and Edith of Gaiety Hollow, 1932
~ Elizabeth Lord (1887-1976) and Edith Schryver (1901-1984).
~ Gaiety Hollow: their home, the house placed to enhance
their garden, one of 250 they designed together.
I.
Elizabeth, taller, might’ve reached the breakfast preserves, hung linens
on the clothesline. Perhaps Edith set their table beneath the window,
early northern light giving shape and color to backyard blooms,
paths dividing into rooms lilac, camellia, olive-yellow, thornless rose,
grape vine, pink clematis entwined atop the pergola’s beams; a shaded, backless
bench tucked beside small trees and ferns, a bright green riot;
a friendly garden shed within a separate, sunlit space, for tools and rakes
to tend and mulch the plants. The yard there, rubbed down to earth--
by working men? or, by the owner-women, in slippers and peignoirs?
II.
Just next door, Elizabeth nursed her ailing mother. During years
of witnessing decline, did the garden’s birdsong and promise
bring, with every glimpse, a released breath?
When Elizabeth’s turn for help arrived, did Edith offer care? We only
speculate, the women having burned their personal papers. The full account
is lost to us, a stony pact within their legacy, their era guarding privacy.
III.
We have been told of Edith’s way, when aging and alone: she gazed at
the garden from her kitchen-window seat … perhaps, at the hollyhock,
stalk of creamy bells—in Edith’s room of memory, a taller, more precious bloom.
Ada Molinoff
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
aBeacon
A coral rose stationed
ten inches above the soil
beckoned to me
through leaves of cobalt,
viridian and chrome green
gathered my gaze past paving bricks
and sweet alyssum and purple veronica.
All else in shadow. When I sold our house thirteen years ago and vacuumed the living room carpet for the last time, I found a small red Lego against the baseboard and picked it up, knowing my future self would need that piece of the past, viewing the scene as if through water, as if through mist, as if on the screen of another mother’s film.
August with no rain only feathers
scrub jay, junco, chickadee, crow.
All hushed with historic heat.
Three spent leaves of yellow-brown
looked on as I painted that rose,
that beacon in times of doubt
tints of quinachridone and vermilion,
red-orange radiant in the garden.
“I’m glad I have a mother like you,” Elliot said yesterday from his swivel stool in the kitchen. I took a moment to think. “Thank you. I work at it.” “I know,” he said. I added, “And I haven’t always been like this.” “I know,” he said again. And his beacon blue-green eyes looked into mine. We have had our shares of darkness and anger, shadow and sorrow.
A white-crowned sparrow tilted its head
trilled its beacon song from the camellia tree
as water trebled behind a green lattice fence.
traffic shrilled and screamed on Mission Street
around the left side of the house. Then stillness.
ink snapdragons conversed with chickadees
dee dee dee as the three yellow leaves looked on
and the coral rose, poised and observant,
ignaled its beacon prayer.
C. Herron, 2017
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Gardening
The earth breathes
It inhales and exhales
I breathe with it
My fingers rake through the dirt
Around familiar plants
Mallow, sage, foxglove, lavender, hollyhock
My friends
The earth below my knees
Expands, contracts, rises up and sinks
Ever in movement
I float on its surface
Fingers raking its soil
Familiar movements
That nurture day lilies, phlox, Joe-Pye, asters
Franca Hernandez © 2016
A coral rose stationed
ten inches above the soil
beckoned to me
through leaves of cobalt,
viridian and chrome green
gathered my gaze past paving bricks
and sweet alyssum and purple veronica.
All else in shadow. When I sold our house thirteen years ago and vacuumed the living room carpet for the last time, I found a small red Lego against the baseboard and picked it up, knowing my future self would need that piece of the past, viewing the scene as if through water, as if through mist, as if on the screen of another mother’s film.
August with no rain only feathers
scrub jay, junco, chickadee, crow.
All hushed with historic heat.
Three spent leaves of yellow-brown
looked on as I painted that rose,
that beacon in times of doubt
tints of quinachridone and vermilion,
red-orange radiant in the garden.
“I’m glad I have a mother like you,” Elliot said yesterday from his swivel stool in the kitchen. I took a moment to think. “Thank you. I work at it.” “I know,” he said. I added, “And I haven’t always been like this.” “I know,” he said again. And his beacon blue-green eyes looked into mine. We have had our shares of darkness and anger, shadow and sorrow.
A white-crowned sparrow tilted its head
trilled its beacon song from the camellia tree
as water trebled behind a green lattice fence.
traffic shrilled and screamed on Mission Street
around the left side of the house. Then stillness.
ink snapdragons conversed with chickadees
dee dee dee as the three yellow leaves looked on
and the coral rose, poised and observant,
ignaled its beacon prayer.
C. Herron, 2017
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Gardening
The earth breathes
It inhales and exhales
I breathe with it
My fingers rake through the dirt
Around familiar plants
Mallow, sage, foxglove, lavender, hollyhock
My friends
The earth below my knees
Expands, contracts, rises up and sinks
Ever in movement
I float on its surface
Fingers raking its soil
Familiar movements
That nurture day lilies, phlox, Joe-Pye, asters
Franca Hernandez © 2016