Midday in the garden of good
Le Jardin
Des milliers et des milliers d’années
Ne sauraient suffire
Pour dire
La petite seconde d’éternité
Où tu m’as embrassé
Où je t’ai embrassée
Un matin dans la lumière de l’hiver
Au parc Montsouris à Paris
A Paris
Sur la terre
La terre qui est un astre.
-Jacques Prévert
The Garden
Thousands and thousands of years
Would never be enough
To talk of
The little second of eternity
When you kissed me
When I kissed you
One morning in the light of winter
At Parc Montsouris in Paris
In Paris
On earth
Earth, that star.
-Jacques Prévert
The running joke for the last several months has been that President Obama has kidnapped my friend Sarah’s husband, my friend Steve. He’s been in the middle of a special detail with the Executive Branch and we haven’t seen much of him.
Luckily, all of his hard work is paying off for his friends. He jolted me out of a dull Sunday afternoon of record-browsing and bike riding with an invite to wander around in the White House gardens. It’s the kind of tour any Tom, Dick or tourist could do, but with the perk of getting in quick with the flash of his personnel badge.
It made for a lovely afternoon of wandering around pretty green things with some of my favorite people in the District. The roses aren’t yet in bloom in the Rose Garden, but there were tons of perky tulips and plush-looking grass and even a band playing “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
As an added bonus, my arborist roommate came with us and dropped all kinds of tree-preservation knowledge during our walk.
In other garden news, I noticed this morning that the spaghetti squash seeds I planted last week are already sprouting. No sign of movement on the pepper or cucumber front, but maybe my Christmas wish for a green thumb is taking root after all. I’ve still got a long way to go before I see any fruits (heh) from my labor, but I’m already giddy about the prospect of eating something that I planted in the ground myself. But maybe I’ve just been reading too much bucolic French poetry lately.
If anything, I hope my veggies fare better than those in the first White House garden, started by John Adams. From the tour pamphlet:
“John Adams, second president, and first occupant of the White House, ordered a garden ‘turned up’ before his arrival in 1800. He had hoped to enjoy early vegetables, but his defeat at the hands of Thomas Jefferson meant that Adams had to leave the White House before his garden was green.”
That’s politics for you.
“Meet me alone in the garden
Excuse me I beg your pardon,
I’m young but I can do things
I’ll fly away with my wings”-”Meet Me in the Garden” by Dent May and His Magnificent Ukelele
