And yet.
My first inspiration came to me in the most pretentious form possible—a red, well, sort-of wheelbarrow. Almost a wheelbarrow. Souped-up wheelbarrow? A conveyance enough like a wheelbarrow to keep William Carlos Williams on my mind for days.
For everyone not enough of an English geek (or not pretentious enough!) to automatically think of it, William Carlos Williams wrote a poem about a red wheelbarrow, a poem that tends to elicit strong feelings from readers. Either the poem is a glorious, laser-focused verse elevating the mundane to art…or a futile, failed attempt to make a barnyard mean something it doesn’t.
I won’t copy the whole poem here—oh, who am I kidding? Of course I will! Here you go:
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Here’s our red wheelbarrow-like
visitor. It arrived in response to our neighbors’ plaintive cries that something,
anything be done about the native vegetation (weeds) surrounding the oak and
palmettos, the oak that gave our house its family nickname, the Tree House. The oak grows
on common property, directly between our house and the pond. Yet apparently the
ragged growth there ruined the viewing pleasure of those around us.Red landscape wagon to the rescue!
The Landscape Wagon
so many cried
out for
the landscape
wagon
proper plants
aboard
to welcome the
gator
 |
| The gator cometh... |
Ayup, folks, that’s my
pseudo-pretentious return to blogging from the Tree House. May all your wheeled
conveyances be poetic!
