A BITE FROM E.B. WHITE

For those who’re burdened by political news and the state of the world today, I recommend a “time out” with someone like E.B. White, the essayist who wrote for the New Yorker during the mid 20^th century. White often turned to farm journals to “escape for a few moments the ominous headlines in the papers…” However, he claims to have found danger even in the agricultural news, and this morning I returned to one of his essays entitled “Plant the Garden Anyway,” in which he talked about his dismay after reading a farm journal article listing dangers in the flower garden.

According to White in Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976, the journal article warned about poison in a single castor bean that would kill a person… vomiting caused by pinks… sweet pea seeds containing a poison that could keep a person bedridden for months… night blooming jimson with enough substance in the leaves to produce delirium… and daffodil bulbs that, when eaten, cause stomach cramps. Danger in the garden indeed! People “back then” must have had bizarre diets!

White didn’t mention bees, digger wasps, and poison ivy. He may have been threatened by leaves, bulbs, and flowers, but the insects and ivy I just mentioned carry their own brand of poison in the garden. To me, the answer to the dilemma of the poisonous plants highlighted in the farm journal is a simple one: don’t sample the plants! Actually, the author of this article recommended completely doing away with a garden that produced such dangerous plants as the sweet peas, daffodils, etc. and changing the seed! Seems like gardeners in White’s day were either a) hungrier than most gardeners today or b) were experimenting with plants containing exotic substances to see if they would induce some kind of mind alteration.

White also discussed the plant patent business in another essay entitled “Prohibited,” in which a man received a birthday present of an azalea, and tied around the stem of the plant (“like a chastity belt,” White says) was a tag reading “Asexual reproduction of this plant is illegal under the Plant Patent Act.” White’s friend tore off the tag and sent it to another friend with instructions to bed it down next to “an old buck hydrangea.”

Whatever dangers White passed on to those of us who have trouble gardening must be taken with a grain of dirt. We should get our plants in the ground where, for a brief period, they will reward us with their bright faces, every now and then attracting swallowtails, monarchs, skippers, perhaps even a lunar moth.

My love of gardens was inspired by my mother’s nightly readings from books like A Child’s Garden of Verses and Marigold Garden. These books had nothing to do with poisonous seeds, but readings from them actually planted the seeds for my poetry writing today. I was inspired by such poems as Stevenson’s “The Flowers:” “All the names I know from nurse/Gardener’s Garter, Shepherd’s Purse,/Bachelor’s Baths, Lady’s Smocks,/And the Lady Hollyhock…”

The straggly garden pictured above, whose seeds I never saw since I purchased seedlings for my two miniscule beds, contains mostly herbs I can eat without getting sick. The sight of this place where moles and rabbits freely graze would probably cause White to smile. The flowers on one side of the yard are deer proof, so they have a chance of surviving. This is a consideration I gave them rather than worrying about poisonous seeds; however, I didn’t count on the invasions from moles and rabbits.

P.S. I haven’t seen either the asexual azalea or old buck hydrangea in the nurseries here on The Mountain, so I can’t foster any plant coupling.

KATE AND LILLIAN

“This month (March) shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.” Exodus 12:2

I’ve always maintained that if everyone had the opportunity to hold a baby for about a half hour each morning, the world would become a better place to inhabit – and I’m able to add to this sage counsel that if everyone had the opportunity to hold twins each morning, they’d take a twofold mellow attitude into the world that day. I know because I had one newborn squeakbox under each arm yesterday morning — my great-granddaughters Kathryn Ann and Lillian Celeste Romero, and after holding them, I felt like I had just drunk a big cup of “Mello Joy”.

I had read all of this stuff about equations, models, and designs for showing differences and similarities in twins and looked at complicated scientific drawings that predicted behavioral differences, but when I saw those innocent faces framed by silky black hair, I decided to love both of them the same… despite any variations in personalities. Kate weighed in at 6 lbs. 3 oz., one minute before Lillian, who was slightly smaller at 5 lbs. 11 oz. Kate may be the most dominant of the pair because in ultra-sound pix taken before birth, she seemed to be sitting on Lillian during Kristin’s (their mother) entire pregnancy. However, I feel certain they’ll be “same-same” about loving each other.

On March 1, “the beginning of months” for them, the skies were overcast when the day began, but by 9 a.m. a brilliant sun had appeared. I looked out of my window and saw oak leaves fluttering in a south wind and intuited that the twins had blown in. All would be well. A few moments later, their grandmother Stephanie called to announce their arrival. I went into the living room and picked up Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child’s Garden of Verses that I had bought for myself years ago and opened to my favorite poem entitled “Happy Thought:” “The world is so full of a number of things,/I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” I spent a few hours thinking about all the children’s books I wanted to share with them, “sitting safe in nursery nooks,/Reading picture storybooks.”

When I visited Kate and Lillian yesterday, they were swaddled in blankets and lying on their backs. They seemed to be totally relaxed about their entry into the world, living up to their names, both of which mean “pure” — free from discordant qualities (which means no all-night crying sessions, right?) and free from contamination (so I hope no one in their room turns on the news containing political posturing this week!).

Here they are, waiting for all those arms to hold them… and one snapshot of big brother Alexander Charles enfolding one of them in his arms, excited about the miracle of two girls appearing in his life. He’s unmindful that he’ll soon have to share his toys and endure two girls following him to soccer games and places that he doesn’t want them to be. There’s even a snap of me in a happy moment bent over an infant that some people deem as “the first object of our compassion.”

A picture is worth a thousand of my words this morning, so I hope you’ll enjoy looking at the miracle of Kate and Lillian and will help me welcome them into a warm and cheerful world.

Photographs by Dad Martin and Victoria I. Sullivan