Description
Dandy
I’ll be so direct by saying, if I may, that here is simply, absolutely, the best place to be. Here,
where the rolling hill plunges towards the ocean. Here, where the sight of the Bavarian blue sky
makes my insides feel endless. Here, where, watching as I so often do, as the white cotton
shape-shifts before my eyes, summer-time in suspense. The sun’s rays suspend from the sky,
dangling like the hands of time. They caress me. A pocket watch in the sky, the sky's the best
accessory. Here, where I am more popular than I could ever have once imagined. Here, I am
special; the first food of the season available for the bees, the robins stop by and peck at me
searching for seeds, the children don’t disregard me, in fact they are gay and giddy, giggling
while they pluck me from my roots to make a bouquet, a bouquet of wild things. Here I can be,
simply serene, no more of an eye sore than the scorched grass.
Robin
Where do I start to make the point that I’ll be making?
The seeds were bountiful,
the worms, plenty.
The fence was just the right height,
the breeze ruffled me just to my fancy.
But I digress.
Perched atop the blockade, though I am not the gatekeeper.
Leave that job to the cantankerous gardener who fusses over his plot.
He is doleful in the way he sows his seeds,
groaning at the sign of things that he decided should not be seen:
a dandelion in his plot,
the lazy, fat, orange cat from the quarter 3 blocks away.
Although I am not the gatekeeper, I contest that which the gardener decides is and isn’t allowed
within the parameters of diamond shaped wire.
Anything that is life,
or that therefore contributes to it,
should be, without question, allowed.
A garden after all, is where one goes to grow.
Gardener
I go to sow
and someday I will reap
that which I grow
Not so unique is my garden plot from the rest
we are indeed, not very different from one another
raised beds and turning heads
I didn’t intend to cultivate for the looks
but no one is looking at me
not anymore than they look at a dandelion
I had a dream last night
the robin in the garden was talking to me
singing for me
I sat for a while on the splintery wood chips that surrounded my plot
I listened closely
as I had promised myself to do
looking for nuance in the bird’s song
wordsless, but not without understanding
together we understood
or so I thought.
Publication Date
Summer 2021
Keywords
University of Southern Maine Art Department, book arts, student work, painting, drawing, collage, poetry
Disciplines
Art and Design | Arts and Humanities | Book and Paper | Poetry
Recommended Citation
Pressman, Sadie, "Dandy/Robin/Gardener by Sadie Pressman" (2021). ART/RSP 299: Gathering in the Garden: Poetry and Studio Art. 4.
https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/art-rsp-299/4
