FROGS Talk
by Ivy Sinaiko, FROGS President
Ivy Sinaiko, FROGS President (Photo credit: John Richards)
Hello to all of you. I hope you are enjoying this long-awaited spring.
April was National Poetry Month, and once again Gioia Caiola Forman and Susan Eggerton provided poems for your enjoyment throughout Green Spring. This is a Green Spring tradition I treasure, and I thank Gioia and Susan for continuing it. I don’t often sit down and read poetry, so I appreciate being reminded of how thought provoking and emotionally satisfying it can be. In honor of National Poetry Month, even if it may have passed when you read this, I’d like to share a couple of my favorite poems with you. Both deal, though in very different ways, with the comfort and joy being outside in nature can bring. During the past very difficult year, the popularity of our parks has amply illustrated this point.
Poetry in the garden at Green Spring. "Four Ducks on a Pond" by William Allingham. Photo credit: Bonnie Bell.
The first poem is “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry.
“When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought
Of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
The second poem, “My Hero,” is by my favorite poet, Billy Collins. To me it suggests the same theme, although in a more lighthearted way.
“Just as the hare is zipping across the finish line,
The tortoise has stopped once again
By the roadside,
This time to stick out his neck
And nibble a bit of sweet grass,
Unlike the previous time
When he was distracted
By a bee humming in the heart of a wildflower.”
Poetry in the garden at Green Spring. Poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson titled "The Eagle." Photo credit: Bonnie Bell.I don’t suggest nibbling the grass at Green Spring, but do let yourself be distracted by the bees and flowers and experience to the fullest this lovely time of the year.
Finally, if I were a poet, I’d write an ode to Nicole Mitchell, who makes her last appearance as Green Spring manager in this edition of Gardenline. She has been a true pleasure to work with. I have admired her organizational skills, empathy, creativity, and resilience and wish her the best of luck in her new endeavors.
