| The Gardener
by Ken Weisner
For Kit
You get down on your knees in the dark earth—alone
for hours in hot sun, yanking weed roots, staking trellises,
burning your shoulders, swatting gnats; you strain your muscled
midwestern neck and back, callous your pianist's hands.
You cut roses back so they won't fruit, rip out and replace
spent annuals. You fill your garden dense with roots and vines.
And when a humble sprout climbs like a worm up out of death,
you are there to bless it, in your green patch, all spring and summer long,
hose like a scepter, a reliquary vessel; you hum
through the dreamy wilderness—no one to judge, absolve,
or be absolved—purified by labor, confessed by its whisperings, connected
to its innocence. So when you heft a woody, brushy tangle, or stumble
inside grimy, spent by earth, I see all the sacraments in place—
and the redeemed world never smelled so sweet.
Ken Weisner, "The Gardener" from Anything on Earth. ©2010 Ken Weisner, published by Hummingbird Press. (buy now) It's the birthday of Ernest Hemingway (books by this author), born in Oak Park, Illinois (1899). He was just 22 when he moved to Paris with his wife, Hadley, having taken a job as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Daily Star. Even though he was making decent money he liked the idea of living like a bohemian so they moved into an apartment in the Latin Quarter, in a neighborhood full of drunks, beggars, and street musicians. Rent was 250 francs a month, or about $18, which left them plenty of money to travel around Europe when they wanted to. He rented himself a room in a hotel and every morning, after breakfast, he would walk to his writing room and work. He said, "I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.'" One of those sentences read, "I have stood on the crowded back platform of a seven o'clock … bus as it lurched along the wet lamp lit street while men who were going home to supper never looked up from their newspapers as we passed Notre Dame grey and dripping in the rain." It's the birthday of Hart Crane (books by this author), born Harold Hart Crane in Garrettsville, Ohio (1899). His mother was a Chicago debutante and his father was a very successful candy businessman. An only child, he was frequently left in the company of various relatives while his parents went off on business trips together. From the time he was a teenager he knew that he was gay and he was fascinated by the life and career of Oscar Wilde. When his parents' marriage fell apart, Crane dropped out of school and took a train from Cleveland to New York to begin life as a poet. He loved being in New York, hanging out with poets like E.E. Cummings and Allen Tate. But he had trouble making a living there, couldn't hold down a job. His drinking got worse and worse and soon he was a serious alcoholic. In 1932 at the age of 33 he killed himself by jumping overboard a steam ship on his way from Mexico to New York. He left behind his masterpiece, The Bridge (1930). It's the birthday of Tess Gallagher (books by this author), born in Port Angeles, Washington (1943). Both of her parents were loggers — her mother was a choker setter (she fastened steel cables to logs so that they could be pulled out), and her father was a high rigger (he climbed to the tops of spar trees, trimming them along the way, and fastened lines and blocks to them). She grew up on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, she was the oldest of five kids, and the family never had much money. She loved reading and started writing for the town newspaper when she was in high school and a couple of years later she took a class about iambic pentameter from Theodore Roethke at the University of Washington. She started publishing, books like Stepping Out (1974) and Under Stars (1978). Since the beginning she has stuck with a small publishing house, Graywolf Press, even as she became more famous and got offers from big publishers. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 