Earth Day -- In My Own Backyard

I never have understood why people litter. Can't they wait until they get home and throw their empty container in the garbage or hold onto it until the nearest trash can? Do they even think twice before flinging that plastic water bottle, McDonald's hamburger wrapper, Big Gulp plastic cup, or Coke can out the car window or down to the sidewalk?

For someone who guards a well-chewed piece of gum until I can find a suitable place to dispose of it, I just can't relate to a litterer. Can you?

This time of year, litter is particularly obvious. The ground is bare. Litter has no place to hide. Earth hasn't started to cover the shameful trash with her greenery. I see it strewn in lawns and ditches every morning on my walk here in Arkansas and along streets and sidewalks near our apartment in Jersey City.  I chastise the unknown perpetrators, lament the environmental impact, bemoan the ugliness, yet do nothing. Someone else will pick it up. I don't have anything to put it in. It's too dirty. No more excuses. No longer!

Drew and I started picking up pieces of assorted litter last week as we walked on the road leading to our house. A couple of cups, a quart-sized bottle of Margarita mix, cans, a torn plastic bag large enough to stuff it all in.

The recycling truck will pick it up tomorrow, April 22 - Earth Day. A fitting end to this litter's saga.

But there is more.  Today I took pictures.

Tomorrow I will take trash bags and pick it up.  And I will try to do so without chastising, lamenting or bemoaning, but simply doing.

Then I'll come home, sit among the dogwood, azalea and lilac and thank the earth for her beauty. . and for my ability to be among her stewards.

   “The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.” 
                                                      --Wendell Berry

 
 



 

Winter Haikus in NYC - Poetry for the Season!

Each season I write haikus, a practice I began when we lived in Russia. I would sift through my many photos, select five that particularly "spoke" to me, put words to pictures, in 5-7-5 syllabled lines, and post them on my Arkansas/Russian Reflections blog. (Check archive for haikus). Nature was always my theme, a familiar companion, in a country that took time to get to know. 

When we moved to New York City, I followed a similar pattern. Although back in my home country, I often felt like a visitor, a tourist rather than a citizen. I needed something to ground me. Something that was the same in Moscow, New York City, Cairo, Singapore, Juneau or Greenbrier, Arkansas.

Tree 

Leaf

Flower

Path to walk

Space to breathe

My spring, summer and fall haikus reflect where my eye wandered, where my soul gravitated for comfort and connection.  

 I continue this winter, with Nature linking me to my surroundings; Her threads often leading me beyond the obvious. 

May these images and words provide a thread or two for you. . . wherever that might lead.

Happy Holidays!  

Rockefeller Center

                                                              Rockefeller tree

jeweled, admired, crowned a Star

led a quiet life

Statue of George Washington
Federal Hall

 Ever so quietly

snowflakes trigger mem'ries of

soldiers without shoes

View of New York Harbor from our window

Oh, sing to the dawn 

promises of liberty

for tired, poor, for all

Farmer's Market, Union Square

one among many

no matter how welcome, still,

feeling out of place

intersection Broadway and Morris (Lower Manhattan)

potted wonderland

between frantic stop and go

balance is the key

A Sanctuary in NYC

Before we moved to NYC two years ago, my friend, Margie, asked, "Where do you think you'll find a sanctuary?"  She knew how much I value and need quiet time in nature.  When we lived in Juneau, Alaska, it was Margie who introduced me to being in nature, not just appreciating it from a distance. And there was plenty to appreciate!  All I had to do was look out our living room window to see the  top of the Mendenhall Glacier ringed by snow-covered mountains.

Margie invited me to walk trails, hike mountains, cross country ski across frozen lakes, dangle my feet in glacial waters and to notice. Where I might plow ahead, Margie would often stop to admire the delicate shape of a Sitka rose petal or the raspberry brilliance of fireweed.

She is, after all, an artist.
(Margie Beedle's field of fireweed, July 2013)











It was in Alaska that I began to learn how to be, to simply be, in Nature's presence and to receive what She knows I need.  To breathe. . . and know that I am breathing.

I had no immediate answer to Margie's question; but in the two years since, I have searched and found a few of, what are for me, nature's sanctuaries.
The depth and breath of the NY Botanical Gardens
The windswept grass at the Irish Hunger Memorial
City Hall Park early on Sunday morning, where quiet reveals birdsong
Under a tree, atop a boulder, on a bench in Shakespeare's Garden - all in Central Park

Then this week I re-discovered a garden, almost hidden if you don't know where to look, off  Hudson Street (#487) in Greenwich Village.  Another friend, Nola, showed it to me over a year ago, but I had surprisingly forgotten about it.  Busy checking the GPS on my phone to locate Magnolia Bakery somewhere close by, I looked up and there was the entrance.

A red brick wall, a black wrought iron fence, an unassuming, rather narrow opening -- inside, a sanctuary, the sign even declares it so.

The Gardens of St. Luke's in the Fields.  I like to imagine that the church was once surrounded by acres and acres of waving grasses, long before the city caught up with it, which could be the truth.  It was built in 1821 and the gardens' "first verifiable planting in 1842; a tiny slip taken from England's Glastonbury thorn."

As I walked in, the decibel level from the traffic dropped dramatically.  I could have been in Elizabeth Bennet's backyard (Pride and Prejudice), or the wealthier Mr. Darcy's, more likely, owing to the Gardens' size and graceful elegance.  I wove my way along the path absorbing the lush greens and dazzling colors.

Other visitors were quietly talking, reading, pushing a stroller back and forth as a baby slept, sipping a Starbucks, or just resting.

                      I found a quiet corner bench, sat down,

              and breathed.

The Height of Cherry Blossom Beauty

My writing spot at our NYC apartment is the dining table beside the window, looking down 27 floors.  Plenty high for me, considering that my knees start shaking at heights greater than a step stool.  Today I'm blogging from a cruising altitude of 36,000 feet, at a window seat, no less.  The view as we fly over square patches of land, in who-knows-what state, is tempting -  in a queasy kind of way. But with the width of the country to cross in the next few hours, I need a long-term writing distraction.

San Francisco is my final destination to attend our daughter-in-law, Kate's, doctoral graduation from The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.  A proud and monumental accomplishment, to be sure!

In the days leading up to the trip, my list of Shoulds grew increasingly vocal, if not downright pushy.
"You should wash."
"You should clean."
"You should pack."
"You should run errands."
Should . . . Should . . . Should!

"But I don't want to," I answered.  "Look at the sun pouring through the windows.  It's 65 degrees outside. 

                   Trees are leafing.  Flowers are blooming.  Ice cream carts are waiting."

To appease the Shoulds I ticked a few things off the list, but the Want-Tos, just as determined and much more computer savvy, drew my attention to the message on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's website. . .

                                       "Cherry Blossoms At Peak !"

   That was it -- the tipping point.  Enough Shoulds!  The Want-Tos, who often feel neglected, joined me as we joyfully tripped out the door.

Every direction I looked after entering the Garden was a photograph.  From my camera's perspective, I tried to focus the expansive beauty into intimate close-ups.

  

All my attempts to add words as accompaniment fall pitifully short and unnecessary.  

Meandering through the photos, perhaps you can discover your own words - or not - choosing simply to be with the beauty.  

 Or, do as I do, and borrow from Mary Oliver. . .

...The Singular and Cheerful life

of any flower

in anyone's garden

or any still unowned field --

if there are any --

catches me

by the heart, 

by its color,

by its obedience

to the holiest of laws:

be alive

until you are not.

In the Company of Trees

Trees have been on mind lately.  Not that I've consciously been thinking about them; perhaps that's the problem.  They keep cropping up like an unexpected friend, the one you've been meaning to call, but just haven't found the time.  It's only in hindsight that I see the pattern, the not-so-coincidental encounters, like yesterday. . .

I had settled into my aisle seat on Southwest flight 1445, heading back to NYC from our home in Arkansas, and needed something to read.  Not yet in the mood to finish the last chapter of Eleanor Roosevelt's autobiography, I pulled "Spirit" out of the seat pocket in front of me.  The title of an article in the SW magazine intrigued me, "The Old Man and the Tree," by Sarah Perry.  Jonathan Bartlett's illustration immediately drew me into the story.

Frank, the old man, had cared for and developed a 50-year relationship with the Yarmouth, Maine elm (or Herbie, as the community liked to call him). Frank passed by Herbie every day, just to say "hello." He brought school children to visit, to link hands and surround the massive trunk, to give Herbie a hug. 

"What is it about a thing as seemingly insignificant as a tree that can inspire such devotion?" Ms. Perry asked.

Not that I'd use the word "insignificant" when referring to a tree, but I did have a similar thought about a month before when I stood in front of a tree in Brooklyn. (No, not THAT tree.)  Drew and I happened upon the Camperdown Elm during a Sunday afternoon walk in  Prospect Park.  Not particularly striking, with arthritic-looking limbs held together by taunt wire cables, this elderly arbor clearly showed its 140 years. 

Yet much like Herbie, it had been saved, tended to, even cherished by a community and revered in verse by a poet, Marianne Moore, who wrote, "It is still leafing; still there. Mortal though. We must save it.  It is our crowning curio."

Shortly after that chance meeting, there was yet another.  I was visiting the 9/11 Memorial with my friend, Margie, on a sunny autumn morning.  I had been there before, so as Margie absorbed the experience for the first time, I observed details I had missed.  I noticed people gathered around one particular tree, one of the 412 spread throughout the plaza, touching its bark, fingering its leaves, standing, gazing at it with a worshipful reverence. 

The callery pear is the only surviving tree recovered from the destruction of the World Trade Center. When it was pulled from the rubble, it had one living branch; it is now thriving.  I felt a peacefulness as I watched the Survivor Tree  providing its quiet comfort to, and in turn being comforted by, the people in its presence that morning.  

Then, last week our son, Jason, wife Kate, and three children invited me to help decorate their Christmas

tree.  

As Jason lifted Nate up to place the glittery red star on the tree's top, and the little fingers placed ornaments on her limbs, I saw a relationship beginning.

A relationship. . . .

In the busyness of my life, I obviously needed reminders to re-establish relationships with the calming presence of neglected "friends."  As if the universe wanted to give me one last nudge, I received a card from our daughter, Katherine.  Inside were two tea bags -- and two autumn leaves, red and yellow,  from the tree in her yard.  

  

    

Autumn (Haikus) in New York

Following my self-proclaimed tradition, I write five haikus during each season, attempting to capture nature's beauty in pictures and words.  Since we've lived in New York City, I have written haikus about Central Park scenes during spring and summer.  I decided to explore parks closer to our Lower Manhattan home for autumn inspiration.  May the images and poetic 17-syllables add pleasure to your fall day, with special Thanksgiving wishes to those of you celebrating the holiday.

silenced gaslights seek

illumination amidst

flaming companions

(City Hall Park)

sadly, the Busy

ignore our invitations

to stop, sit, to breathe

(Hudson River Park)

you eat much more than 

  you squirrel away, consumed by

the present moment

(Battery Park)

unrestrained redness

bursts across the landscape in

giddy cheerfulness

(Hudson River Park)

reflective stillness 

interrupted by City's

persistent presence 

(Battery Park)

Haikus Herald Summer's End in Central Park

When spring was barely budding, I continued my tradition of writing five haikus during each of the seasons.  In my posting on March 11, 2012 I explained how I began writing "Haikus Written in Russia but not in Russian" when we lived in Moscow. Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo Park was my setting as the seasons changed.  When we moved to New York City, I needed another park.  Thank goodness, there happen to be a few.

I returned to Central Park on Saturday, as a kind of "farewell to summer" outing.  Not that summer is officially over, but it's beginning to feel that way with school starting and sweaters replacing tank tops in every clothing store window.

Enjoy the words, pictures and the sentiments of a season, soon to begin yet another transition.

idyllic rowboats

paddle cross dappled waters 

how distant the shore

in Shakespeare's Garden

flowers philosophize and

whisper words of love

       timeless purity

        dear Angel of the Waters

          bless of what we drink

summer skating rink

smooth as frozen split pea soup

where is everyone? 

                                

a book and a bench

in the company of trees

summer's end; perfect

Feel Beauty in Monet's Garden

I couldn't leave NYC for a month in Arkansas without visiting Monet's Garden, or as close to Giverny as possible - a one hour subway ride to the Bronx.  I knew that the exhibit would still be at the Botanical Gardens when I returned, but the water lilies were blooming -- the water lilies!

The subjects of Monet's 2000+ paintings may have ranged from haystacks to parasoled women, but it's the pasteled blues, greens, pinks, purples of the water lily pond that I immediately associate
 with his name.

Five years ago, I stood in the center of the Musée de l'Orangerie's oval-shaped room, surrounded by Monet's water lilies. . . panel after six-foot panel of lilies on water wrapped around me, flowed through me.  Like a peaceful dream.

I tried to imagine the man who spent the last 30 years of his life painting them.  What was so compelling about this flower, its kinship to water, the way it changes from sunrise to dusk? "These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession for me," he wrote to a friend in 1909. "It's beyond my strength as an old man, and yet I want to render what I feel."

When I walked into the Conservatory Courtyard Pools at the Botanical Gardens, I understood.

"I want to render what I feel," Monet had said.


For a few minutes, I put my camera aside and sat on a bench, searching for words to describe what I saw, but stopped.  It was simply enough to feel the beauty.  

A picture of Monet, taken in his later years, hangs in the Conservatory, amid a stunning simulation of his Giverny gardens.  His quotes are tucked in among dahlia, foxglove, daisy, and rose.

   

       

  Whether it be the flowers of Giverny, the waterlilies floating on the pond, or the oak trees outside my window here in Arkansas, Monet reminds me to feel the beauty of Nature's moment.  To feel it, be inspired by it and experience its peace. 

                                                                           

Brooklyn Botanic Garden. . .With More Friends

Who knew that there is more than one botanical garden in New York City?
A friend recently began describing  the Cherry Watch Blossom Status to me.
"It's on the botanical garden's website. You can find out the best time to view blossoms.  It looks like another week or so before most of them will be in full bloom," she reported.
Confused, I said, "But I've already seen cherry blossoms at the New York Botanical Garden."
"Not that botanical garden, the other one, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden," she patiently explained.

I must start reading my guidebooks more closely.

On a perfect Easter afternoon - no clouds, only blue sky, sunshine and 60-degree gentle breezes - I was off.  I couldn't wait until the "best viewing time."  Another garden awaited my exploring.  This one is somewhat smaller, 52 acres rather than the 250 of its Bronx counterpart, but plenty big for me. . . and two friends.  Different exploring buddies than the ones who trekked with me to the New York Botanical Garden last week, but world adventurers, none the less.

                         Shannon and Nola, friends whom Drew and I first met when we all worked
                                                  in Egypt, at Cairo American College

So, what prompted me to take my camera out every couple of minutes, stopped me every few feet to smell and listen?  The better question is, "What didn't?"  Such incredible beauty, fragrances and birdsong compacted into 52 acres!

The Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden particularly captured my attention, as an area I did not find at the New York Botanical Garden.  Wandering around the rim of the pond, I found collections of trees and flowering plants that meshed together so perfectly, it was hard to tell where one stopped and the next started.

                                    
                       Cherry blossoms found a perfect home on the pond's edge.


  It was not only the grand sights, but the tiny, timid leaves and flowers who asked me to stop and take their picture.

                                                          **********

                A walk in nature always leaves me with memories and a "wanting" to return.

                           

      The delicateness of a cherry blossom lingers in my mind. . .

                     while a field of green blades, soon to be awash in Bluebell, will bring me 

                                (hopefully, with Nola and Shannon) back in May.

      In the meantime, if any of you knows of yet another botanical garden in New York City, 

      please leave me a comment.