Inspired by music...

On Sundays we have music in the gardens. This week, I decided to go out and listen to the flute music. I brought my notebook out with me, sat on the grass, ate a couple rice cakes, and let myself drift away. The result of that was a poem.

I’m sitting under a tree

And there’s a sculpture to my left

I notice the ants crawl on my skin

But there’s a beautiful act of theft

My attention has been taken

By a soft and shallow sound

And I become so still

As I sit here on the ground

The rhythm creates a ghost

It’s floating through the air

I’m afraid to let it in

So I shift my eyes and stare

I try and put this into words

As the world spins ‘round my head

I've been writing poetry

But life’s a book that can’t be read

--
ah bee

Welcome!

Perspective is such a subjective idea. We can only look at our own experiences, visions, or emotions without being completely able to share them with the rest of the world. However, we have this desire to let people into our own shoes every now and then. In order to share our perspective with the world, we need to attempt to create something that is tangible. This is where art tends to come in. We write, sing, paint, sculpt, so on and so forth. This kind of language allows us to move our ideas/emotions/experiences into a more tangible world. We all have our own tricks of the trade - and some of us may not consider ourselves artists of any kind. However, we use the simplest tactics as an art form to express ourselves. Language is the most common of these forms - we speak to one another sharing a part of our perspective. Some of us take photographs and show others saying "this is where I've been!" or "that's what he looked like after he fell in the mud" - transposing our experiences into something a little more tangible.

I'm going to take the time to share my perspectives of the gardens with you. Hopefully through my writing I will be able to take an experience or idea, and transpose it into tangibility for you. Don McKay writes that "poetry comes about because language is not able to represent raw experience, yet it must". Essentially, the attempts that we make at creating tangible ideas will continuously be a failure. You can never quite capture a feeling. However, this kind of language is the only means that we have.

I tend to lean more toward creative writing as my outlet for expression and sharing. Therefore, I am using this to show you my perspectives within the Historic Gardens. Many things go on during a day here - and a large part of it may go unnoticed. Sometimes I like to watch a bee floating between flowers - keeping our world moving in his own special way. Everything here is always moving and changing; an ebb and flow to keep the world alive. I enjoy coming in here and seeing the phases of the plants and flowers as the weeks go by. Sometimes I am completely taken by surprise at how quickly something has bloomed. The laburnum came and went right before my eyes (quite literally, as it is right across from the gift shop). The castor beans are beginning, and I know that very shortly they will be brilliantly tall. There are many small things to take notice of. We bustle through our days most of the time - and I personally find the gardens to be a place where the world is allowed to slow down for a moment. We keep saying "stop and smell the roses" - and while I'm here, I try to do just that. The universe will unfold as it shall; we can see that even within a single rose petal with a soft, silent, shimmering drop of rain.

abby