The Fecund Season

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

The whole poem is quite long.  I always forget its name ("The Garden") because I expect something more elaborate.  You can read it, among other places, here:

http://www.gaygardener.com/poems/gpoem065.phtml

Andrew Marvell rocks.

As long as you're reading about green things, you should read this:

http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/08_00/redwood_genome.shtml

Redwood trees, which all sort of look alike, and which grow in clumps that certainly look like clone sisters, have, as it turns out, amazing genetic diversity. I should be able to draw a moral from that, but I can't.  Though it reminds me that the bdelloid rotifers, which have no sex at all, have a great genetic diversity too, all through mutation.  I don't want to think about this as a metaphor for anything.  I just want to contemplate it.  That's not conducive for writing, though.

 

More about sex:

Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation, by Olivia Judson.  That's where I learned about bdelloid rotifers.

I have not written yet this morning.  I have stared at the apricot tree, which is really what brought all this on.  The poor dear actually cracked a limb this season, from overbearing -- last year it had fifteen apricots! And this is the time to prune it, supposedly -- after all the fruit has been picked or has fallen off.  So I was out there devising a strategy.  But the branches that have to come off are too thick for the clippers, and I can't use a saw.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Three years a Stakhonovite, a lifetime of uselessness.  If I could tell my nineteen year old self something, it would be: "forget factory work and the romance of organizing -- you're a bad organizer anyway -- preserve your hands.  You'll miss them!"  But I wouldn't have believed that it would happen to me: I didn't think I was imoortal, but I did think I was strong, and that I had good hands.  Now I can't do very damned much with my hands at all.  But I can cut tile on a tile saw!  That works!

 

I think I'm warmed up now,  I'm going to go do some real writing before the nice fellow gets home.

 

1815 words

Not as much as I would like, but more than I've been doing, anyway, and it's coming out good. I'm pleased. This is still Gratitude, and so far I have written the first chapter, which is short and takes us from "what is he, some kind of monster?" to "wait, he's not killing them, he's granting their wishes." And I have started the second chapter, in which out boy figures out what remembering is and has his first job experience. Originally the first job experience happened after he met Candelario, but I like this better.

Aiee, we're leaving for the Paramount in twenty minutes and I still have garden dirt under my fingernails and I'm weraring a shirt that's all over tomato sandwich.