{"id":8227,"date":"2011-07-08T11:08:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T15:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8227"},"modified":"2011-07-08T11:08:13","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T15:08:13","slug":"the-whole-sweet-world-is-a-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/the-whole-sweet-world-is-a-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"The Whole Sweet World Is a Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/object><\/p>\n

[Video: Rowlf and Fozzie collaborate, after a fashion — and much to their surprise — on an instrumental version of “In an English Country Garden<\/a>“]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence. And Zen suggests that we may be driving toward one or the other on a cosmic scale. Driving toward them because, one way or the other, as madmen or innocents, we are already there.<\/p>\n

It might be good to open our eyes and see<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Thomas Merton [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

What birds plunge through is not the intimate space
\nin which you see all forms intensified.
\n(Out in the Open, you would be denied
\nyour self, would disappear into that vastness.)<\/p>\n

Space reaches from us and construes the world:
\nto know a tree, in its true element,
\nthrow inner space around it, from that pure
\nabundance in you. Surround it with restraint.
\nIt has no limits. Not till it is held
\nin your renouncing is it truly there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke<\/em>)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Flash Reverses Time<\/strong><\/p>\n

DC Comics, November 1990, #44<\/em>
\n \u201cNever Look Back, Flash<\/em>
\n Your Life Might Be Gaining On You\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

When I\u2019m running across the city
\non the crowded streets
\nto home, when, in a blur,
\nthe grass turns brown
\nbeneath my feet, the asphalt
\nsteams under every step
\nand the maple leaves sway
\non the branches in my wake,
\nand the people look,
\nlook in that bewildered way,
\nin my direction, I imagine
\nwalking slowly into my past
\namong them at a pace
\nat which we can look one another in the eye
\nand begin to make changes in the future
\nfrom our memories of the past—
\nthe bottom of a bottomless well,
\nyou may think, but why not dream a little:
\nour past doesn\u2019t contradict our future;
\nthey\u2019re swatches of the same fabric
\nstretching across our minds,
\none image sewn into another,
\nlike the relationship between a foot and a boot,
\ncovariant in space and time—
\none moves along with the other,
\nlike an actor in a shadow play—
\nlike a streak of scarlet light
\nacross the skyline of your city
\nsweeping the debris, which is simply confetti,
\ncandy wrappers, a can of soda,
\nall the experience of a day discarded
\nand now picked up
\neven down to the youthful screams of play
\nthat put smiles on the faces of the adults
\nwho hear remnants of their own voices
\nthrough a doorway leading back
\nto a sunrise they faintly remember.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(A. Van Jordan [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Bonnie found Sally Anne Ruthven at the exact location she seemed to occupy twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year: in her Village News store on Main, across from the bank.<\/p>\n

The date and headlines and front-page photos of every newspaper Sally Anne carried changed every day, of course. The characters in the comic books racked up along the wall — Archie and Jughead, Batman, Captain America and The Flash, Scrooge McDuck, all the rest — over time, they heaped up fresh adventures and new wardrobes, acquired incrementally different postures, dimples, and hairlines as illustrators came and went. The covers of paperback books, over the course of decades, transmogrified into simpler, all-uppercase titles and more lurid graphics which somehow hinted at ever more complex characters and plots. Greeting cards: fewer lavender-flowery artwork and sentiments, more cartoonish, funnier, starker<\/em>, even from one week to the next. The philodendrons and African violets in the window behind Sally Anne’s front counter grew, bloomed, dropped leaves, shriveled in the summer heat and flourished again a month or two later. Even the hotplate in the window, the pot of brewed coffee, the cash register — even these seemingly permanent fixtures had been replaced twice, three times, in all the years Bonnie had lived in [the town], as their industrial obsolescence set in.<\/p>\n

Only three features of the store’s interior, in short, seemed unchanging: The candy-bar brands, and their arrangement inside the glass case. The dim and slightly dusty air…<\/p>\n

And, of course, Sally Anne herself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(JES, Seems to Fit<\/em>)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

A Local Doc, over Rocky Lunchtime Bourbon, Speaks of Barter and Hopeful Home Remedies<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nostrums? Lordy, I have seen them all.
\nAlcohol\u2019s the favorite. Many a quack\u2019s
\npanacea bottled in a cellar and hawked
\nfrom door to door is thriving still.<\/p>\n

Bindweed\u2019s supposed to heal a bruise.
\nCherokee remedies still survive,
\nand slave recipes — hyssop, juniper, chives.
\nWaitress, freshen this elixir, if you please.<\/p>\n

One day a hefty woman who works a loom
\ndown at Pepperell Mills sauntered in
\nwith no appointment and perched herself prim
\nas an English queen in the waiting room.<\/p>\n

What happened next? For a prolapsed
\nuterus, folk medicine recommends
\ninserting an Irish potato. It works,
\nif you can stand the weight, my friends.<\/p>\n

Well, she\u2019d relied on that specific
\nsince winter. We\u2019d hit, you understand, July,
\nand her complaint, not one bit shy,
\nwas, Leaves in my virginia<\/em>. Not beatific,<\/p>\n

no, but she was composed, no maniac,
\nand it made some sense. What better place
\nthan a protected pocket, warm and moist?
\nBut the spud had sprouted, sent runners amok.<\/p>\n

You never know in these flatland burley
\ncounties if your manual skills will bloom
\nas sawbones or private gardener. Deftly,
\nI removed the obstruction and took it home.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve raised a whole colony in my window box,
\nand bake, fry, or boil, I\u2019m proud as hell
\nof this year\u2019s crop. The woman paid her bill
\nwith eggs and applejack. Life is a paradox.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019ve got to rush back and tend my flock.
\nGot appointments at four — a pregnant lady,
\na leg to set, twins to inspect for chicken pox,
\nand Marvin with his routine emergency.<\/p>\n

I guess you could say my practice is thriving.
\nDrop by, and I\u2019ll fry you up some shallot
\nhash browns in Margie\u2019s seasoned skillet,
\na flavor I can promise is sure to revive<\/p>\n

any ailing soul. Where do I get my onions?
\nDon\u2019t ask. The whole sweet world is a garden.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(R. T. Smith [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Video: Rowlf and Fozzie collaborate, after a fashion — and much to their surprise — on an instrumental version of “In an English Country Garden“] From whiskey river: The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence. And Zen suggests that we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,74,196,5,50,251,515],"tags":[325,1078,1681,2441,2448,2449],"class_list":{"0":"post-8227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-music","9":"category-television","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-grail","14":"tag-thomas-merton","15":"tag-rainer-maria-rilke","16":"tag-the-muppets","17":"tag-walker-percy","18":"tag-a-van-jordan","19":"tag-r-t-smith","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-28H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}