How fragrant the rose...

I fear this may be the swan song of this rose. There's only one cane. Maybe if I cut it down this fall, it'll sprout some new growth. That one has certainly put on a show this year.

I'm host for the book club today, so I've got to get cracking.

The bloomin' season

I think the white rose is a JFK.

The peonies that I planted 3-4 years ago have decided to bloom--at least one of them has.

***

Regarding Ahab's Wife, or The Stargazer, by Sena Jeter Naslund. The ending, consisting of the last hundred pages or so, falls rather flat after the amazing, incredible rest of the book. I think she should have stopped with the death of Ahab, but that's just me. All I can say in summary is Wow! If I could write like that--if I could write like that--I'd never do anything else, I would just write, let it pour.

*

"(But do you know me? Una? You have shipped long with me in the boat that is this book. ...If I am your shipbuilder and captain, from time to time I am also your comrade. Feel me now, standing beside you, just behind your shoulder?)"

*

and

*

"If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead."

Guarding the Stump

There he sits! Wonder if I can get any closer.

He's smart enough to sit in the shade.

***

"I dream of a red rose tree,

...and which of its roses three
is the dearest rose to me?" - Robert Browning
~

This is the prettiest thing I've ever grown, and one of the prettiest things I've ever seen. Even back when Julius and I grew camellias, I never saw one as pretty as this simple, single red rose. The single cane is full of buds, and I need to move it away from the pink rose bush. Moving roses is very difficult and risky--for me, at least.

It's planted too close to the pink (Cecile Brunner). I've forgotten the name of the red rose, but "rose is a rose is a rose," to quote a female whom I hate to quote.
~
I've ordered a couple of plants, or more than a couple, from Breck's. Some of them will be shipped in the next month. I've already fixed it with Steve for his crew to clean out the yard under the trees; the leaves are calf-deep where they haven't been mowing, of course because there isn't any grass, and dead limbs all over the ground. I went out there this morning and pulled some more dead limbs out of one tree. I also pulled dead limbs out of the foliage across the back, so Steve's guys will (I hope) clean those up, too. Jerry might want them to save for kindling for his fireplace.
~

~

~The two bunches of plants that I'll have to plant this spring/summer are three astilbes in different colors to put in the front flower beds, and a bunch of lily-of-the-valley bulbs that I'll put in big planters
~
Actually, all I plan to put in the back right away (as soon as they clean it up) is all the spider wort I can dig out of Pat's yard and transfer to the bank that the Atchisons built to keep out rain-overflow from the drainage ditch, for a sort of rock garden
~
But for fall planting, I've ordered a few colored irises (for the front of the house), some winter aconite (tiny yellow flowers) for a ground-cover patch in back, and a bunch of small white Dutch irises that will grow in the shade of the trees.

Oak Mountain Echoes

Trimming the Roses

This house became a home, so nearly mine
That something of me clings to it, to haunt
New tenants, as its old ghosts haunted me.
For seven years I paid the rent on time,
Enjoyed the roses and let them run untrimmed
Over the fence; buried my dog in the garden
The night he died; I dug the grave in the dark
And laid bricks over it beneath the rose bush.
A pair of squirrels who lived in the sycamores,
The cardinals, jays, and two old mockingbirds,
Provided year-round entertainment free.
Here I nursed my daughter through the flu,
And spent some sickbed time myself one winter
Indoors, while the north wind whistled down the chimney
And made the gas fire pop and flicker low.
Those days, the house was like another country;
News of the outside world came through some wires
Snaked silently into the house, and filtered out
My ancient, time-encumbered radio,
Altered thereby, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Well, it was home, and all the ghosts were friendly;
I hope ours prove so. Now I must move my books
And move my daughter, and leave my dog in the garden
Under the roses where he used to bury bones,
Leave the birds and squirrels, the quince at the corner,
And the roses just as I was getting ready to prune them
And maybe divide the iris, or buy some new;
Leave the wisteria that I trained to grow
Across to the hedge, making a summer house,
A playhouse for my daughter, years too late.
I can just bear to leave, by telling myself
There’s hope I’ll find another dog I like,
And another place that will feel like home. Now, life
Is like this house. That ought to be a lesson.
It isn’t a part of you, but only the place you live in,
Paying the rent and keeping the property up,
Or letting it go, but subject to sale or transfer
After you’ve ground its rich soil into your hands
And sent out fine white roots into all its cracks,
And just when you’re getting ready to trim the roses.

Page 19 (copyright 2001 Joanne R. Cage)

1st prize, National contest. Published in Encore, 1996.

Whaddaday!

This morning I woke up thinking, You might as well call Murray's to come and get the car. That nice man who answers the phone at Murray's garage sounds like a Blackwood or Stamps Quartet bass, on the phone, but his voice is pretty normal in person. He sent a man to jump-start the car, and I drove it around and around Leeds for a while, then to the shop for them to check the battery and change the oil. They said the battery is good, just needed the connections cleaned and wires replaced or something. When all was said and done, I paid them more money than I had, by way of the Visa card.

Thank goodness spring is near. My utility bills this month will take all of my state retirement check, mainly thanks to Alabama Gas. And I've been cold at least half of the time this winter. When I'm cold, y'all know it's cold.

But spring will come, and the ice will break. I'm already broke as a haint.

Armed Forces/Veterans/Armistice Day

Smell the roses

The roses are really gorgeous this year. The white one is a John F. Kennedy, and I forgot the name of the yellow ones, but they remind me of Mama's old Peace rose.

Got to go check on my pot of great northern beans!

Sister and Tab

I woke up this morning thinking about the November novel. Calling it "Dolores" or "Dolly." Was "Dolly" Bobbie or Betty Lou? Anyway, then I decided to write why they were all so scared of Papa, and that would have to begin with Tab, or with Sister. So now it's all jumbled in my head again, but at least I know where it has to start.

Painting the roses yellow...

Not just the roses, everything around here has a thick coat of pollen. And my sinuses feel like I've been breathing mud instead of air, not to mention the drip, drip, drip. And not to mention the temperature going up to 80 today and adding to the discomfort.

I'm reading a book called American Indian Mythology. Just finished Twisted Hair, a Cherokee story--I read it quickly today, because I got an order for it and hadn't read it yet. It's amazing how the different tribes had (or have) different myths, but they all seem to have a Grandmother Spider. Maybe it was the displacement of so many tribes by the palefaces that mixed them all up, plus the mixing in of Christianity. Twisted Hair was a wandering stranger whose long hair was twisted into ropes and bound with buckskin; he traveled the Southeast warning the people that the end of the world, i.e., the coming of the white man, was imminent. This book didn't offer any references, so it may just be something the author made up. It's OK with me, because I sold it for thirty-something dollars.

This afternoon, Mo and Wilder were under the deck howling like banshees at a pretty blue-gray short-haired cat, who finally walked calmly out to the back of the lot, sat down under a tree and refused to budge. My neighbor Rev. Mark was picking up dead limbs and twigs under my west-side trees, I don't know why. Anyway, we remarked on all the stray cats in this neighborhood, and he mentioned the orange cat that I called Conrack and Mark's wife called Cosmo, who disappeared I think it was two years ago. It's nice to know someone else who likes cats well enough to remember the name of a stray for two years after it moves on.

The story of the Rainbow Bridge comes to mind. How sweet it would be someday, to see Monty, the black mama cat, Carly, Chink, Bob, Bear Bryant, Socks, Mus, Misty, Griffin, Conrack, and little Darcy come running to meet me. Bob would lag behind, trying to pretend it wasn't a big deal to him. (I would probably be carrying Mo.)

Think about Doug, if Tony met him.