Rooftop gardens are still blooming in cities everywhere. No matter how small or large our gardens, or how large or small we gardeners, we all share a farmer’s joys and vicissitudes, so delightfully illlustrated in this New Yorker cover by Ivan Brunetti entitled “Urban Bliss”.
Poet Marianne Moore observed that poetry cultivates “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” Kay Ryan seconds the motion in “The Best of It”, a potent little poem about the valiant efforts we can’t seem to help but make… to grow.
However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn’t matter that
our acre’s down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we’d rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.
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garden in the shower + a moss bathmat
windowfarms for apartment farmers: opensource brilliance
canal house cooking Vol. 4 for summer’s bumper crop
