Thoughts on Vacation -- c.anne.gardner

Well, I am officially on vacation for the first time this year, and exhausted already would be putting it mildly. Too much smoke, too much drink, to much food, too much sun, and more hard labour in the garden than my body can stand. The allure of a spring day and the scent of freshly dug earth is far too enchanting to go unnoticed. I will have to resume my book reviewing duties shortly, but for now, Mother Nature's poetry is enough for me.

You see, gardening, to me, is art at its most chaotic. It's pure romance: Beethoven's fifth symphony and the subtle words of Shakespeare's pining poets all muddled together. It's a thousand brushstrokes, some delicate, some ardent, and some violently streaking across the landscape. It's dance and song and colour in an orgy of wild exuberance. The bleak winter sky has retreated, and as the plants push through the wet earth, awakened once again by the sun's sumptuous embrace, it feels as if all my long lost friends have come back to me. The summer birds are returning; nest building has commenced with unmatched fervour. The animals have come out of their burrows to dance and shower each other with dewdrops and spring kisses, and the air smells like cow shit. Well, it's not as romantic as Shelly would have described it, but you get the point.

"Nature's first Green is Gold." -- Robert Frost

Nature feeds the soul, and it's the soul that feeds the artist.

Cheryl Anne Gardner