IN THE CLOVER

 

 

Everything is coming up clover. And I don't need to return to Iran, where I once viewed super-abundant fields of clover to see this spring flower blooming. My front yard is a field of white blossoms buzzing with fat bumblebees. Many of my neighbors have mowed their clover crops, but I'm loathe to see my front yard lose its snowy blossoms. I'm currently reading Basho, the haiku master, who glimpsed clover in bloom and was inspired to write: "Bush clover in blossom waves/without spilling a drop of dew."

Yesterday afternoon when I went outdoors to get the mail, I lingered in the front yard clover field longer than I wanted when the neighbor's hunting hound got loose and ran over for his perceived playtime. He jumped on me, pushed me into the clover field thrice before I was rescued by my friend Vickie who held back the dog until I could regain use of my 85-year old legs. The clover cushioned me nicely, but the playful dog that has had no canine training must have thought I wanted to look for lucky four leaves amid the field of white blossoms. I have several deep claw marks on my arm and hand as evidence of what he felt was a playful encounter.

As for the clover, I've given up looking for four-leaf specimens as I've heard that there are 5,000 three-leaf clovers for one four-leaf sample. Three-leaf clover symbolizes some notable theological virtues to which I aspire: faith, love, and hope.

 

As an administrator in Girl Scouting, I wore the traditional badge of this organization: a trefoil badge fashioned after a three-leafed clover plant for which Juliette Low gained the patent in 1914. When she stepped down from being the head of Girl Scout operations, GSUSA asked for this trefoil's patent. Clever Juliette Low agreed to do so only if the organization would keep her name on the Girl Scout constitution, stationery, and membership card. I have that evidence on a Certificate of Lifetime Membership card awarded me when I retired from the Bayou Girl Scout Council's administrative staff in Lafayette, Louisiana. I keep it in my wallet next to my driver's license.

I know that old maxims refer to wealth as being "in the clover," a saying that doesn't always mean a field of this plant in your yard symbolizes financial prosperity. However, I remain resistant to the idea of mowing my front yard patch and would search for a four-leaf specimen if I were assured that the hound next door wouldn't escape and throw me into the clover patch.

Photographs by Victoria Sullivan

 

 

A SOAP OPERA

There it was, an image too long in my memory: a tall Mason jar filled with narrow slivers of once-white soap, an unattractive display of objects exposing my father’s parsimonious nature. I got rid of this family heirloom after my father died, but the jar remained in its place on the bathroom sill much longer than I wanted to see it, a vessel holding dried-out, cracked pieces of a soap that supposedly floated in bath water.

The sight of those slivers of soap reminded me of the soaping up my birth family and I did when we bathed in the Colorado River under a bridge in Austin, Texas. That soaping up was one of the few baths our family took during a three-month camp-out en route to California during the 1940s. The soap was a large bar of Ivory, and it remained the soap of the day for the Marquart family as long as I lived under my father’s roof and rule.

Postcard of Bridge over Colorado River at Austin

However, my Grandmother Nell preferred orange-colored Lifebuoy soap and forced Grandfather Paul into a claw-footed tub once a week where she scrubbed him briskly, fussing all the while about having to kill germs that lurked on my ailing grandfather’s skin. During summer visits, she’d also use that same orange bar on me every afternoon following my nap. The scrubbing occurred so that I’d smell clean enough to visit the “garage,” or Motor Sales and Service where my grandfather sold Ford automobiles and black grease abounded. So much for one of Grandmother Nell’s contradictions!

I admit to succumbing to soap scents dating from childhood and have collected special bars such as those smelling of fresh citrus, candy, and cinnamon that have been wrapped in crinkly cellophane or placed in decorative boxes. I’ve put those bars in bureau drawers, on closet shelves, and sometimes under pillows. The soaps are acknowledgments to ancient Babylonians who in 3900 B.C. created special soaps they used for cleanliness and health. It seems that soap has been a bath essential a lot longer than my father’s old collection of Ivory slivers.

I’ve often considered making soap, but the idea of using lye in processing prevents me from doing anything other than buying new scented bars in special boxes and wrappings that others have made.

Perhaps these special bars of soap would have been an affront to my father, who preferred the pure white bars of Ivory, but when an image of those dried-up slivers in a jar enters my mind, I mentally dispose of it again...and hastily open a new box of cucumber soap.

 

 

 

 

SPRING BRINGS MESSAGES OF AZALEAS

When Basho, the celebrated Haiku poet, was eating lunch at an inn at Lake Biwa, Japan, he saw our favorite spring flower blooming and wrote: “Azaleas arranged in a pot/Chopping cod in the shade/A woman.”

In New Iberia, Louisiana, and most southern states—Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama—azaleas are blooming apace, not in pots but in yards where these lovely plants have been growing for years. And, alas, their delicate petals will last only a few weeks during warm southern springs. But while those red, white, and pink shades bloom, we celebrate their proliferation. 

Azaleas probably carry more meaning than Basho’s reference to a woman chopping cod in the shade while azaleas bloom nearby in a pot. According to Apocrypha, the meaning associated with this beautiful flower is femininity and mother’s love. But if you have one blooming in your yard now, you’re probably anticipating good luck and sudden happiness. Red azaleas symbolize the magic of life, but woe be to those who receive gifts of yellow azaleas as these symbolize hypocrisy and are sent to people who have insulted you. Also, don’t taste this beautiful flower because it’s poisonous. However, for those who like an evening glass of wine, Koreans tout a non-poisonous wine made from azaleas called dugyeonju.

Azalea bushes are seldom bothered by insects. (If they’d only bloom all year and repel mosquitoes here in Louisiana). They seem to get enough water while blooming in swamp country, and although their reign is short, they’ll always bear the name of “Royalty of the Garden.” 

Then there are the “Late Bloomers,” an orange ground cover azalea, and the yellow flowering azalea called “Weston’s Lemon Drop,” both of which bloom in late summer. Later, in the early fall, look for a variety called “Sweet September,” which bears a pink blossom. 

While Coronavirus rages, we continue to trust the predictions of good luck and happiness associated with the flowering of this beautiful plant. And we continue to search for more haiku some ancient Japanese poet may have written about this sweetly scented shrub we southerners enjoy with the advent of a Louisiana spring.

 

Photograph by Victoria Sullivan

 

 

 

 

WHAT’S IN THREE LINES

Painting by Paul E. Marquart

Spring inspires most of us in various ways—perhaps the mild weather causes us to write poetry, paint, or plant flowers. The advent of spring inspires me to search my shelves for books about haiku, those three elegant lines of aesthetic verse written by the great Japanese poets. The major ones include Basho, Buson, and Issa, for whom haiku was a way of life, sometimes, as in Basho’s case, a wandering way of life that required focused attention to details of nature, primarily flowers, trees, mountains, lakes…

When I looked for books about this art form, I discovered Natalie Goldberg’s observations about three-line verses and her visits to Japan to study haiku further in a book entitled Three Simple Lines. However, Sam Hamill’s Pocket Haiku, published by Shambala Press in 1995, actually ended up in a pocket of my Covid-wear (slouch pants). The book satisfied my envee for haiku and sent me outdoors several times yesterday.

Those three lines of an art form in poems by the aforementioned Japanese poets—Basho, Buson, and Issa—peaked in the 1700s and spanned only 100 years of Japanese literature. This brief period brought listeners and readers poignant and lasting metaphors in three short lines of 200 poems in Hamill’s translation. The book is small enough to fit into a pocket of slouch pants, robes, or blue jeans, any casual wear that allows haiku readers to relax and think about images of beauty.

Most contemporary poets fail to compose poignant insights in three lines of verse, and Hamill cites Gary Snyder, Richard Wright, and Richard Wilbur as leading the enlightened few to produce memorable haiku.

 

Many wannabe poets attempt to write in this form but fail to explode the top of my head, metaphorically, as Emily Dickinson describes her feeling from reading good poetry. The work of a master does not reflect brief surface thoughts but records a single moment of deep spiritual contemplation.

When I look at my brother Paul’s painting above, I think of haiku and wish that I could write a “three-liner” that captures a single moment of appreciation for this lovely piece of art. I dare not! However, I allow Basho to say what I feel:

Come out to view

the truth of flowers blooming

in poverty.

Painting by Paul Emerson Marquart, photo by Lori Marquart

A PRIMITIVE FLOWER?

Five million years ago, the beautiful Japanese Magnolia took its place among the ancient tree species of southwest China; however, the first trees sent to America were from Japan. Our resident botanist, Dr. Victoria Sullivan, says Japanese Magnolia are "primitive flowers." According to Apocrypha, if the tree blooms out of season, you might be harboring anxiety in your home. Perhaps, but I think these trees are just signaling an early seasonal shift—it's called "spring."

The lovely purple blossoms that appear on the trees around New Iberia, Louisiana, could be a variety known as Jane Japanese Magnolia. Still, I'm not a horticulturist or botanist, and to me, they're just blooms that not only enhance the Cajun landscape, they also carry a delicious fragrance I enjoy while sweeping the backyard patio. Some of these Japanese Magnolia blooms can grow up to 12 inches across, and the petals form a shape like a goblet or Communion cup, so I own a tree of sacred vessels.

Fortunately, my Japanese Magnolia was planted behind my home because this location symbolizes that it's in the right place to bring financial security. But I'm warned not to sleep under a blooming Japanese Magnolia tree, or the fragrance would kill me. And what a way to go!

I'm supposed to be on the lookout for Japanese beetles, slugs, and leaf miners, but the weather has been too cold for me to do daily inspections, and I'm assuming that the cool temps have deterred their proliferation. Some garden enthusiasts prune their Japanese Magnolia trees after they flower, but renegade gardener that I am, I allow it to have its way in the backyard. So far, it has been a "long laster," blooming during its appointed season since the late 1970s.

I don't know if the new fence we built (to ward off the hounds that were slipping through a wire fence into our backyard) has bothered our long-growing magnolia beauty. Still, so far, nothing has deterred the blooming of this spectacular flower. It's taller than the fence and thumbs its nose at the barking dogs beneath.

P.S. In a few weeks, I'll get to see another spectacular spring display in my backyard at Sewanee, Tennessee—yellow and white daffodils. As Basho writes: "How I long to see/among the morning flowers/the face of God."

 

Photograph by Victoria Sullivan

 

 

RETURN TO DIDDY WAH DIDDY

I suppose that not many people will view Nomadland and get an envee to buy an old van and take to the road, but I felt vagabond stirrings within me after I saw this award-winning movie.

In 1946, just after WWII, my father decided to quit his job as a civil engineer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and travel to "nomadland" to become a gypsy, as he called it. And when he presented this idea to my mother, she, who had been a Golden Eaglet Girl Scout and primitive camped in Alabama as a young girl, agreed that gypsying would be the life to lead. My father sold all our furniture, bought a utility trailer, filled it with camping equipment, and didn't bother to ask if any of his four children liked the idea. We were expected to wander in the western United States indefinitely. I once described my father's decision as a time when I heard all the doors of schools and libraries clanging shut against me.

My father took us to see Marlene Dietrich and Ray Milland star as gypsies in "Golden Earrings," and romantic that he was, he decided that gypsying was the way for all of us to live. My mother became excited about this proposed adventure. So, one warm day in May, after school had let out, we packed a utility trailer with camping equipment and an old trunk from my mother's college days crammed with all the clothes we were allowed to take. We filled a giant jug with water and placed it at my one-year-old brother Harold's feet in the front seat of a '41 Ford coupe, and off we went.

We survived three months on the road and 'though the open road looks appealing to me today, I remember uncomfortable days traveling ever westward, sleeping on stone tables in state parks, bathing in the Brazos River, and eating a barbecued jackrabbit my father had shot one night (illegally). Because I complained that I might never see a school again, he named me "a luxury-loving gal" and continued the odyssey. It ended in busy Los Angeles where he decided to turn around in traffic whizzing by and declared, "We're going home."

The Diddy Wah Diddy experience reminded me that I'm not an intrepid camper, but I like to think I could be. You can Google small trailers on the net and turn up photos of tiny campers for sale that feature everything except bathrooms and visualize crossing the Mohave Desert on a warm day in June. You might quickly return to earth. However, I admit that during these enforced times of isolation due to the Covid virus, travel trailers look enticing.

But… would you go out there in the vast expanse of desert or pass through it to avoid Covid, or seek company and amenities in nomad land at nightfall? Or would you fly on through it like the Flying Dutchman? I reckon you'd have to "keep a 'going," as my Grandfather Paul used to say. (He was one to talk since when he finally located my mother on the Diddy Wah Diddy trip, he encouraged her to come home rather than continue with the odyssey).

 

And so I sit at my desk watching fat robins fly in and quickly fly back out, and return to looking at small travel trailers, then add a second Diddy Wah Diddy trip to my bucket list. Maybe when I'm 90??!!

 

 

LEGACIES OF BEAUTY

Painting by Paul E. Marquart

 

During these spring-like days when life becomes flowers and soon-to-be gardens, I leaf through two black notebooks with photographs of my deceased brother Paul's paintings and gardens he planted in northern California a few decades ago. I'm proud of Paul's considerable talents in both fields, and I viewed his art firsthand several times, but I never tire of revisiting the photographs his wife took and relinquished to me on a visit about five years ago.

Although the paintings of flowers don't have his usual signature symbols—tiny people embedded in forests and other landscapes —I laugh when I discover them because Paul seemed to think people should be a part of any garden or landscape when he created art.

 

Paul's Garden

I once sat in the garden depicted in the photograph above, wearing a heavy jacket on a summer morning because the wind often blows cold in northern California, even in the summer. I loved the sights and scents of this Paradise Paul had created. He had a checkered past, beginning with mischief-making at an early age as the firstborn boy in our family, and he showed little interest in scholarly pursuits while in school, but he was someone I think Henry Miller would've taken under his wing as an artist living at Big Sur, California. However, Paul would not have liked the idea of being poor, although he would've enjoyed the community and stayed at Big Sur awhile during an adventurous period of his life.

I didn't communicate with Paul for twenty years until one day the phone rang, and I recognized his lazy southern drawl at once. "You need to come out to see us," he said. "I have this old pick-up you could use to tool around in the redwoods." At the time, I was employed at a daily job and told him I couldn't visit, but he continued to talk about his painting, and I told him I wrote poetry. "I'll trade you a painting for a poem," he said, and a few weeks later, we made the exchange. Two years later, I went out to northern California on vacation, and we reunited.

I'm proud to own a few of Paul's paintings and the two black notebooks. Paul began practicing art early, illustrating my father's tales about Jimmy Bear, but he didn't become a serious artist until the 1990s, when he gardened and painted until his death a few years ago. I like to pen the lines "art is eternal" when I look at Paul's paintings and gardens. And when winter closes in, I spend a few hours a week thinking of how art can alter a person's vision—and lead him/her to create a legacy of beauty.