All Felled

"THEY PAVED PARADISE...WITH A PINK HOTEL"
AND PURPLE CARS
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS, OR NOT ~

Painting by Leonard Orr
~ acrylic on canvas ~
Pick your own "excellent titles; you cannot be wrong."

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot . . .

They took all the trees, and put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
No, no, no
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot . . ."

from the song "Big Yellow Taxi"
written, composed, and originally recorded in 1970
by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell (b 1943)
With Joni Mitchell's song running through my head, I scrolled through the paintings of Leonard Orr until I found the perfect match - up. Thanks to Len -- professor, poet, artist, friend -- for sharing his vivid visions, allowing his audience an infinite range of interpretation, and allowing me the freedeom to title these paintings with completely unexpected new readings. In the abstract painting above, I saw the parking lot, filled with cars and pink boutiques and a couple of tree museums. In the paintings below, I found leaves, leaping and growing green, and a shadowy blue river bank.

Thanks for this post also go to Matt O'Neill -- former Dubliner, current chef, poet, friend -- for pointing out to me that of all the authors mentioned on my blogs, Gerard Manley Hopkins is sadly under-represented. I am grateful to Matt for this accurate editorial observation -- time to rectify! Now is the time to branch out beyond the often anthologized "Margaret are you grieving" and "Send my roots rain."

Matt said "Binsey Poplars" was his favorite. Years ago, he had memorized it and never forgotten the trees:
" . . . That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank."
Upon reading the poem, I saw an immediate connection to "Big Yellow Taxi." Like Mitchell, Hopkins is protesting the removal of the trees in the name of industrial progress: in 1879 for the railway; in 1970 for a parking lot. Separated by a century, both writers despair for the Earth. Mitchell mourns the loss of "paradise," what Hopkins calls the "sweet especial rural scene."

The poet's favorite poplar trees (aka "aspens") have all been chopped down, the entire grove: "All felled . . . Not spared, not one." And worse yet, "After-comers cannot guess the beauty been." Those who pass by today, if they were not previously familiar with the Binsey poplars, will not even be able to imagine what they are missing. In Mitchell's song, the one forlorn consolation is that for a small fee you can catch a glimpse of former times at the "tree museum."

Binsey Poplars

felled 1879

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew —
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)

A few closing connections from . . .
1. Matthew O'Neill's poetic cookbook, The Seasons at Walden Inn:
Signature Recipes from an Elegant Country Inn (1997)

Seasons at Walden

The seasons, like a lilting carousel of
ponies winding 'round the Walden Inn,
are turning through life's carnival
of changlessness and change.

Spring is wobbly with hope, its
ride a bit uneven, like someone
shook out a bag of butterflies
found sleepig somewhere
deep in Winter's wrinkled husk. . . .

March
brings to mind Ireland and St. Patrick's Day. It is the bridge betweenthe last protestations of a dying winter and a Spring spilling out on wobbly Kelly green legs. . . .

and

2. Leonard Orr's first volume of poetry, Why We Have Evening (2010):

Spring Planting

It is time for preparing the garden again,
time to fix the fence and sprinklers, add compost,
remove all the fall and winter debris.
More aesthetic than practical, I select vegetables
by their physical appearance, by their sexual resonance. . . .

Raking and smoothing the rich soil
my mind soon drifts toward earthy matters.
If I could escape discovery, I would lie down on the bed,
flat on my back, slowly place my arms toe-ward and then
darg them in bold curves through the fertile ground.
Then jumping off, I'd sneak away and watch
as later you would find the imprinted dirt archangel.
I will have you in mind when I plant the tomatoes
with their soft, smooth skin, their blusing color,
their compelling and lingering taste, their modesty.

How blatant should I make my raised bed, since
even young people, wlaking by on the sidewalk,
might see through the many holes and gaps in the cedar fence
yellow-neck squash flirting with the Brussels sprouts,
Japanese eggplant, thick fingers intertwined with vines?

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ "Limelight"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com