Desiring Green
August is a stupid month, burning
Grasses in the shade lands, killing
Energy and desire, mixing
Dust films with scant rain.
After a dry and dusty August day in my once verdant Summer garden, I’m in the mood to make petty, whinging parodies of “very important poetry”. It’s a weird coping strategy, sure, but it’s not the worst way to express my dislike of this hot, depressing season in central Texas. Complaining is better than just being sad about it.
The ironic truth behind my whining is that I don’t have to let things get quite this brown. It’s a choice. A few years back, I decided to let a native ground cover overgrow the patchy, water-wasting Augustine that was on the property. It was barely a lawn anyway. This little plant is darned near evergreen, pretty drought-tolerant, but dies back in the most extreme heat of the year. All it needs is one good rainfall to return. Most living things are not meant to be always growing.
It is technically possible to force an unnaturally long life by constant watering and applying amendments, but that’s just not my gardening style nor very practical for my circumstances. It’s not that I begrudge people who put up shade cloth and irrigate like mad; it’s the only way to care for certain food crops and ornamental plants in this climate. But for me, it makes sense to let some things dry up for a few weeks a year, clear what has gone to seed, and then let the soil sit until the early Autumn rains begin to fall. It’s ugly. It’s brown. I hate it. Yet it is a wasteland of my own making.
My back yard after last year’s Autumn rain. Oh, my heart…
Expectations
Speaking of another manmade Waste Land, I once saw a copy of Eliot’s original draft in the old Ransom Center collection at UT Austin. It must have been twenty years ago but it was a memorable experience. We hovered around our professor, wearing white gloves, flipping carefully through the typed pages that were covered in Ezra Pounds confident slashes, whirls, and marginalia.
I’ve never forgotten the shock I felt seeing Pound’s ruthless strike-through on the first page. It is such a mess of edits. When you turn to the second page, the top half stands out in part because it is so clean. But that’s where you’ll find the beginning of the published poem, some of the most famous words of the 20th century. I can remember that I was stunned they were on the second page. My 20-year-old imagination knew nothing about the creative process and could not anticipate that a poet like Eliot didn’t have it all worked out from the start. Surely those slimy-sounding gerunds were in place from the very first draft. I mean, I could understand Pound making a few suggestions about word choice, but what is this mess? Is this how all creative things begin? Must everything be this severely pruned?
Between the sweaty composition of my complaint parody and memories of my overturned, youthful expectations, I started thinking about how our expectations can significantly alter our choices when making or growing things. At some point in life, we all learn that the way we choose to live now - limited to that which is within our control - is directly correlated to our expectations. When I expect to engage in stewardship as a gardener, my choices change. I can want more than to have my immediate aesthetic desires gratified and instead focus on what makes the plants themselves flourish. I can even think about what helps them heal.
I choose to suffer through the August browning season each year because I expect a better outcome from it, an expectation built from experience. Though my heart longs for the return of my green, messy garden from just a few weeks ago, I know that if I don’t let it become a bit of a wasteland, it won’t thrive the rest of the year. The old growth will suppress the new sprouts and seedlings, as it struggles to live beyond its natural cycle. There won’t be as many flowers for the pollinators, for the monarchs already starting to make their southern migration.
Some things have to become less for a time in order to become more. I think if you are a steward of anything that grows, whether in or out of the garden, it’s good to check in on your expectations from time to time; they will shape what you do.
