Fault Lines and Solace

In my last entry I reflected on regaining balance.  Now balance is even more difficult because coping with COVID-19 pandemic has merged with tumultuous forces unleashed by the death of George Floyd and other Black Americans.  Singed in my mind is this Black man faced down on the pavement with the knee of a white policeman on his neck calling out "I can't breathe."  After nearly nine minutes and calling out for his mother, George dies as three other policemen stand by. A tidal wave of protest against police brutality and racial injustice amidst the pandemic swept across the country and continues.

This poem by Robert Walsh gives me solace as I once again seek balance in mind and body. 

 Fault Line

.
Did you ever think there might be a fault line
passing underneath your living room:
A place in which your life is lived in meeting
and in separating, wondering
and telling, unaware that just beneath
you is the unseen seam of great plates
that strain through time? And that your life,
already spilling over the brim, could be invaded,
sent off in a new direction, turned
aside by forces you were warned about
but not prepared for? Shelves could be spilled out,
the level floor set at an angle in
some seconds' shaking. You would have to take
your losses, do whatever must be done
next.
.
When the great plates slip
and the earth shivers and the flaw is seen
to lie in what you trusted most, look not
to more solidity, to weighty slabs
of concrete poured or strength of cantilevered
beam to save the fractured order. Trust
more the tensile strands of love that bend
and stretch to hold you in the web of life
that’s often torn but always healing. There’s
your strength. The shifting plates, the restive earth,
your room, your precious life, they all proceed

from love, the ground on which we walk together.

As I cope with the fault lines and the now "fractured order" tending Prospect Gardens  along with my neighbors and Ann, my wife, also provides solace because I feel the "tensile strands of love" while experiencing the "web of life."  Plus tending the Gardens gives me hope that there will be another spring, summer and fall.  A few days ago I planted wild geraniums that hopefully will survive and bloom during the spring of 2021. That same day I finished planting another new bed of prairie plants, some that will bloom next year.  A final example of hope is a pussy willow shrub donated anonymously that I found near the Fox Avenue stairs.  A note was attached. I planted it in anticipation that the shrub will bloom next spring while understanding that there are no guarantees.

This season because of  the need for social distancing and Dane County guidelines, we don't have the monthly community work sessions. Instead individuals are working on their own. If there are two or more working, each are in different sections of the Garden. Here's Ann N. properly attired.

Volunteers are now members of the Google Group, "Prospect Garden Caretakers." Through this online group we communicate with each other while completing tasks that I describe. Sometimes I include a video of the targeted area. So far this "social distancing" gardening is working. However, I miss the camaraderie of working together.

If you are in Madison and wish to join the Caretakers, please contact me at jblasczyk13@gmail.com. Your work will be greatly appreciated.

It's been a busy season. Here's Dorrie, in late April, retouching the mural. Dorrie, with the assistance of a West High School student, designed and installed the mural nine years ago. I wonder what the student is now doing?  Thanks Dorrie. She redid the bike mural on the concrete slab last season.

As Dorrie worked on the mural, Ann B., Laura and I, wearing our masks, transferred the Garden's wheelbarrow, hoses and tools from Laura's basement to Hanna's garage, which is closer to the Gardens. Thanks Hanna for providing your garage.  For about four years, we stored the gardening stuff in a shed located within the bike right-away next to Ernie's and Jeanne's lot. They sold their home late last fall and we temporarily stored the gardening stuff in Laura's basement. The shed, covered with lead paint and falling apart, was no longer an option. Last week the shed was torn down.

 

Clearing out and then mulching the raspberry patch was the first actual gardening task of the season. Ann R. and her husband, Mark, did the mulching after Bob and his wife, Jane, did most of the weeding. An unknown person had already cut back the raspberries canes, which was exactly what they needed. Thank you Ann R., Mark, Bob and Jane. Also thank you Ann B., Laura, Ann N., Ruth, Joyce, Loren, Amy and Amy's son Koen for volunteering. All this generosity of your time and work is greatly appreciated.

Hopefully, we will have a good raspberry crop. Passersby, such as grandparents and their grandchildren, will once again stop and be nourished while enjoying themselves and the Gardens.  I am sure sharing raspberries strengthens, to quote from the poem, the "tensile strands of love" between grandparents and their grandchildren.  

The two cherry trees, planted several years ago, look healthy and are now mature. An abundant crop for both birds and humans looks promising.

The notorious and tenacious Bishops Weed (BW) continues to be our collective challenge. Almost all volunteers have worked on the BW invasion. Here's the terraced section on the Regent side that required total rejuvenation. Thank you Maddie, from City Engineering, and Nate, a neighbor, for the new plants. Special thanks to Marsha and Jim for donating and applying the mulch. Marsha also weeded the Peg Arnold memorial garden and with the assistance of Jim mulched the area. This section now looks spectacular.

Our efforts to address Bishops Weed reminds me of  Carl Sandburg's poem "Weeds."

From the time of the early radishes

To the time of the standing corn

Sleepy Henry Hackerman hoes.

There are laws in the village against weeds.

The law says a weed is wrong and shall be killed.

The weeds say life is a white and lovely thing

And the weeds come on and on in irresistible regiments.

Sleepy Henry Hackerman hoes; and the village law uttering a ban on weeds is unchangeable law. 

By no means are the volunteers or me a "Sleepy Henry Hackerman".  But nevertheless, Bishops Weed "come on and on in irresistible regiments" while we enforce the unchangeable law.  Bishops Weed, unfortunately for us spreads rapidly through seeds and deep roots. You could say it is a repeat offender or at least a clever adversary.  

While planting the terrace, Barb, a friend, passed by on her bike. She stopped, pulled down her face mask to exchange greetings. My mask is around my neck. When the bike path is crowded or when talking with a neighbor, I slip into the mask. She took the picture and shared it with this lovely poem by Mary Oliver.  Her poem notices and celebrates nature. Thanks Barb. 

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

Golden Alexander 

Lilacs 

In the spirit of Mary Oliver I share pictures of a few plants from Prospect Gardens.  They contribute to our "fancy world" and are "happy to be where they are."  May we too savor moments of happiness during these unsettling times.  

Daisies and Spider Wort

Jack-in-the-Pulpit 

Pink Spider Wort 

May Apple 

Gardening is a solace for many others throughout the nation during these tense times. Many state guidelines, including Wisconsin's, classified greenhouses as essential businesses. A June 9th segment on PBS' NewsHour featured notable Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf and how he finds solace in his magnificent gardens. Reporter Jeffrey Brown said that plant sales at greenhouses are now at an all time high. Klien's on East Washington was sure busy when Ann and I, with masks on, ventured out on May 22nd and bought plants for the six pots on our deck.

Piet Oudolf designed New York City's High Line Gardens located along abandoned railroad tracks. See High Line  for more information about these spectacular urban gardens. When I dream about the future of prairie gardens along the Southwest Path (also following abandoned rails), I envision a High Line landscape rather than separate gardens.

While I find solace in tending Prospect Gardens, escape from feeling the fault lines of the pandemic and from the brutal death of George Floyd is impossible. Both now mean we have a "fractured order."  Returning to the so called "normal", which we hear so often in the media, as the poem "Fault Lines" suggests is also impossible. Instead we must summon courage to accept our "losses" and  strengthen the "tensile strands of love that bend and stretch to hold" us within "the web of life that’s often torn but always healing."  To me this now means intentionally and vigorously addressing inequality, poverty and our long history of racial injustice. 

A first small step we can all take is heeding this message on the boarded up window of a Monroe Street Business: Listen.  This includes voices we may not like to hear and asking us to look deeply into our own beliefs, attitudes and how our society perpetuates inequalities and racism. 

May you experience solace and peace during these times of worldwide suffering.