Thanks to our ever-dependable, poetical Ozark Hillbilly:
from Song of Myself:
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any
more than he.I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may
see and remark, and say Whose?Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon
out of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.
***********
What’s going on in your garden (memories / planning / indoor / tropical) gardens, this week?
Baud
Oh jeez, OH. Those are amazing photos. Great collection.
satby
What a beautiful photo essay OH! Thanks for getting the morning off to a wonderful start.
Especially solstice eve. After tomorrow, days will begin to lengthen again. And after noon on Jan. 20,
somemost of us will be able to breath easier again.OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Thanx, glad you like them.
eta, @satby: and to you.
raven
right arm, dawg
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I’d reply, “Left arm back atcha.” but I don’t want to insult you. (my way of saying, “Hadn’t heard that one before.” :-) )
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: A play on “right on”!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Ah, I’m a little slow this AM.
Mary G
Wow, lovely.
Spanky
@raven: Farm out, man!
Which seems
oddlyappropriate for the garden post.Dorothy A. Winsor
Those pictures help me see what I probably would have walked right by. Thanks.
KSinMA
Just beautiful. Thank you!
Albatrossity
Gorgeous pics of some of the most underappreciated plants! They contain multitudes!
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: And you just pretend to be an iracible Cuss.
I Love old Walt W….
And staying on theme:
Grass — by XTC
(80’s semi-mullet alert, but it’s a beautiful song)
Raven
@Albatrossity: I may submit a series of kudzu pics. It’s incredible how it will blanket the creek behind our house and then ,boom, it’s gone.
debbie
Love “remembrancer”; beautiful photographs!
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Good Morning, you!
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Spanky
@Immanentize:
Iirc, mullet is a type of grass.
Immanentize
@Spanky: Did not think of that — but it all makes perfect sense now.
WereBear
What a beautiful essay.
Thanks, I love Walt Whitman :)
Argiope
@Raven: Kudzu is fascinating stuff—invasive as hell, yet sort of beautiful with its way of reclaiming territory for nature and greenness. Is it true that no one has come up with a use for it yet? More’s the pity since it’s clearly renewable. I’d enjoy those pics now that I no longer live among it.
waratah
Thank you OH.
Dorothy A. Winsor
OT I know but maybe folks need it. Tips for spending a great Christmas alone:
germy
I’m not a big fan of winter. My back hurts from shoveling two feet of heavy snow.
But one thing I like is looking out our window in the morning and seeing fresh tracks on our property. Paw prints of rabbits and other critters who roamed around our house while we slept (or tossed and turned).
raven
@Argiope: It has some medical uses apparently.
They brought it in to alleviate erosion when the cotton crop failed and now it’s everywhere. We’ve lived here 20+ years and have learned that mowing is the most effective control. The first year we last it go because we didn’t know what the deal was and it grew almost 50 ft up to the house. Now I mow weekly and it keeps it at bay.
stinger
Quietly spectacular!
dnfree
We haven’t had snow yet and everything here is shades of tan and brown. I’ve thought of it as quietly beautiful and wished I could take photos to do it justice. Thanks for being able to and sharing!
HinTN
@Argiope:
Although it’s a little stemmy, its nutritional value as hay is second only to alfalfa.
@raven: They’ve got these herds of goats in Chattanooga that they unleash on hillsides too steep to mow.
Ozark – Thanks for the really intimate pictures and the bit of Whitman. A great way to start the morning.
Benw
Lovely pics!
Most poetic way of telling the kids to stay off your damn lawn ever! :)
JPL
@Immanentize: He still could be an old cuss, just sayin
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Now that my husband and I go for walks every day past the same swampy spot, we are always noticing new things among the weeds and wildflowers, how they change every day, how beautiful they are.
Thanks, Ozark!
debbie
I roll my eyes at the variety in the cereal aisle, but I can’t get enough of the variety in nature. It really is an amazing thing.
JPL
@HinTN: You can rent them in the Atlanta area also. My son’s neighbor did that.
oldgold
The mix of photos and Whitman is very well done.
As a boy I had very little use for poetry. Then, in the eighth grade as a consequence of classroom misbehavior, I was forced to read, memorize and recite Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” In the course of doing so, I started to understand the beauty and power of well considered words.
raven
@HinTN: Yea, we’ve got a couple of the goat businesses here. It’s expensive but worth it if you need it. We have a situation where there is a chunk of property that is behind ours and it has a creek running through it so they can’t build anything on it. It has nasty stains water from where the creek overflows and, when it grows over, it’s a perfect breeding ground for mosquitos.
jeffreyw
I felt the same way after this scene,
OzarkHillbilly
@jeffreyw: I am every bit as eloquent as those 2 all by myself.
OzarkHillbilly
Thanx for the compliments all. This ones been on simmer for a while, finally decided to pull it together.
TaMara (HFG)
@OzarkHillbilly: These are so lovely. I have a real thing for grasses in winter. I suppose spending a few bleak years on the prairies really taught me an appreciation, not to mention the beauty of winter beach dunes.
Kristine
Gorgeous photos. I love photographing dried grasses etc when I go walking. All the shades of dry have a beauty all their own.
Great choice of verse.
“…the beautiful uncut hair of graves.” Wow.
munira
Beautiful – love the photos and of course the words from walt.
AJ - Mustard Search & Rescue Team
So beautiful and touching
Thank you so much OH
Cowgirl in the Sandi
What a lovely lyrical way to wake up on Sunday morning. Thanks Ozark.
Yutsano
All these comments about kudzu, and not one mention about how it’s edible? I’m rather surprised that didn’t get mentioned.
J R in WV
Great photo essay, Ozark~!~ Thanks for sharing with us.
A great eye for fall and winter beauty.
Wonderful combination of photos and Whitman’s posey.
no surprise here, though!
Origuy
Around here, NoCal, the parks departments bring in goats to keep down the vegetation. Among the things they eat are poison oak and star thistle, which is a nasty spikey thing that kills horses. The last time I was in Point Pinole, a park near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, somebody had let their dogs loose and they had gone after the goats. Someone got the ranger while we tried to herd the stray goats back toward the herd.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: Beautiful photos, and I love that you paired them with this poem.
Dan B
A garden guru called grasses “The hair of the earth.”
They’re a plant that reveals the wind to us. And since many keep their stems and seeds into winter they and golden and silvery sparkle in dark months when the sun is low on the horizon.