The Rufous Conveyance

I envision our new life in the “Tree House” as filled with lots of fun, laughter, relaxation, and comfortable hospitality. Casual. All about family and friends. Open doors and open hearts. You know, unpretentious.

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!