Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Poetry
Posted in Photography on March 20 2011, by Plant Talk
Oh the breadth of those limbs—
after the taut geometry of elevator, fire escape, lobby,
to see through branches to the sun—I believed
the world was mine, there was sap in my veins,
the tree was limitless, the scent of the tree,
the bark and the branch and the six-year-old sightline,
which goes on to the edge of the known world.
The Forest at the Edge of the World ~ Rynn Williams
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Posted in Photography on February 25 2011, by Plant Talk
All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
(photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Photography on January 12 2011, by Plant Talk
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
For Once, Then, Something — Robert Frost
Ripples on the Bronx River (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Photography on January 7 2011, by Plant Talk
Why do trees make us think of poems?
Tree and Light (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)
Posted in Holiday Train Show on November 18 2010, by Plant Talk
Sure, we know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet (somebody better tell Ms. Turkey here to go into hiding for the next few days), but that doesn’t mean we can’t start getting festive here at The New York Botanical Garden!
Friday marks the unofficial start of the season here at the Botanical Gardens when members are invited to take a sneak peek at the amazing Holiday Train Show.
We've got so many great things planned for Saturday, the first public day of the Train Show. Get the full details below!
Posted in Programs and Events on November 17 2010, by Plant Talk
Poet Seminarian Finds Spirituality, Inspiration in Nature
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Spencer Reece is one of three poets who will read classic favorites as well as their own work during A Season in Poetry, at the Garden on November 20, co-sponsored by the Poetry Society of America. Photo by Ruth Salvatore |
I have never been to The New York Botanical Garden; I look forward to being there Saturday for A Season in Poetry. Nature inspires me. I find God in nature. If you think about it, much of the revelations in the Bible all happen outdoors, in nature—Moses coming down from Mount Sinai, Paul falling off his horse on the road to Damascus—very little happens indoors. The outdoors with its plants is rather churchy in its own right.
For the program, I will read the work of others poets of my choosing. I’ll also read one or two of my own poems from among those I’m working on for my second book, “The Upper Room,” which is due out with Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2014. The title refers to my room at the seminary in New Haven where I have lived in the process of Holy Orders for the Episcopal church. There is a small flower bed I can see out my window; it contains purple cornflowers.
Five seminarians live in the house, along with the Dean of the Divinity School, his wife, their child, and their Burmese Mountain Dog. One of our tasks as seminarians is to prepare a meal for the community once a week. It is a dinner for 100 to 150 people. Part of that duty requires cutting some of the cornflowers for the dinner parties. The cornflower is a delicate, easily broken flower, the petals shedding as rapidly as you pick them; something about their fragility speaks to me. The cornflowers look forlorn in their vase surrounded by all the food and people.
November 20th promises the reverse: three poets placed in a crowd of plants.
