A Walker in the Suburbs

The crepe myrtle blooms when other foliage withers. It adds springtime hues to a late-summer palate. It does all of this and more.

But only if you have sunlight to sustain it.

Our two crepe myrtles have decided this is not the case. So we have the leaves and in one case even the buds, but not the flowers.

But what is the essence of the plant?

For some reason I think of Yeats, who speaks of that and so much more:

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance? 

A few days ago our friend Sally invited us to her house to dig up ferns. Her crop was crowded and needed to be thinned, she said. So we ventured over, shovels in tow, on an unseasonably warm April afternoon.

We’d been to Sally’s house before but had never spent time in her backyard. It was nice, I knew, from looking out the back window. But I was unprepared for the beauty and calm spirit of the place.

In the native plants garden there are ostrich ferns and wood poppies and bluebells. A path winds along the perimeter with a pond in the middle and a little arched bridge. The yard is shady and cool, a habitat for birds and butterflies. It backs into a woods that stretches for miles along the stream valley of Little Difficult Run. Sally’s garden is one of those surprising suburban oases.

It wasn’t until we returned home, our car stuffed full of ferns and wood poppies for transplant, that I realized why “Sally’s garden” sounded familiar. It was the Yeats’ poem “Salley Gardens” it brought to mind, a verse put to song, a tale of regret and time passing and all sorts of emotions that are often hidden in the suburbs. But they are what give a place depth.

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;

She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder she placed her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

W. B. Yeats