This past week there was another event at YES Gallery, a celebration of spring and also of seven months since the opening. I've been adding flowers and decorations to the windows to bring the outdoors in and the idea of growth and new life to the views people see from the sidewalk, and just as spring begins slowly and all of a sudden everything is blooming, the windows began with some paper decorations I made and then I found a few lovely hyacinth's one day in the flower district, then some calla lilies somewhere else, then an azalea and some pink African violets and then one day on my way in after a big rain storm I found a downed tree branch that was just beginning to bud and I brought that in too. As I added more and more flowers, everything seemed more and more lovely and there is a fragrance now that is such a naturally sweet and beautiful one, filling the air as the flowers bloom and grow and more are added.
Ever since I was very little I've always loved finding and discovering the blooms of spring. In the house where I grew up there were not only many old and beautiful trees, but there were daffodils, narcissus, lilacs, purple and white violets, blossoming trees and shrubs, forsythia, and herbs and flowering ground cover along with an old English garden full of flowering plants that bloomed in seasonal time all spring and summer and into the fall. Finding the beginnings of the greenery and seeing the buds beginning to form and then grow and bloom has always been such a joy for me, and having my blooming windows at YES Gallery has been bringing all of those feelings of exploring the springtime garden back to me.
I read a poem at the event last week, a favorite for many years since the first time I heard it in college when I took a poetry course from a Professor who was also my Don in the English University tradition, and so I was able to do other work outside of the class in conference with him. The poem I chose to read was a section from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, not only because it's a favorite, but also because it begins with the lines, "April is the cruelest month" and the event was toward the end of March and near the beginning of April. I had been thinking of it as the scent of hyacinths was filling the gallery because they are mentioned in such a beautiful way in that poem, and so I read up until that part just to give people a glimpse of that glorious and powerful way of using language that has meant so much to me all these years. Afterward, I was so excited and happy to find that there were people there who responded to the poem and its beauty, and it was a lovely experience to know that this poem that was written a little more than a hundred years ago is still moving and reaching through the minds and hearts of people today. Words for me can be like paintings, creating worlds that touch us deeply and resonate as they grow ever deeper into the core of our being, blossoming and blooming and touching us with their life giving meaning as flowers touch us with their colors and shapes and scent.
No comments:
Post a Comment