Garden Notes

W.S. Merwin,1927-2019, American

from the Moon Before Morning, 2014

 

All day in the garden
and at night when I wake to it

 

 

at its moment I hear a sound
sometimes little more than a whisper

 

 

of something falling
arriving
fallen

 

 

a seed in its early age
or a great frond formed
of its high days and nights

 

 

looking at the sky
made of daybreak the morning sun
and the whole of daylight
the moon and the stars and the clouds

 

Super moon taken in the sky over Cochranville, Pennsylvania by Kevin R. Witman on 27 September, 2015. Photo from the net.

The sky over Philadelphia this super moon night is overcast. 

 

and of the rain descending out of itself
coming down to its own leaf

 

 

there is no trace of regret
in the sound or in the stillness
after the falling
no sound
of hesitation on the way
no question and no doubt.

 

 

 

——–

 

These photos were taken between 2011 and 2014 in four gardens in Addis Ababa, the city of my birth.

 

Addis Ababa, which slopes down a mountainside, is situated at approximately 7500 feet. Her climate is described as both Alpine and subtropical.

 

She is also near enough to the equator for temperatures not to vary that much. Rain is plentiful.

 

The vegetation which can grow in Addis is very varied and lush.  The palm trees shown here are not native.