The Fecund Season

[ritaxis]

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.