Anthology

An anthology is a collection of poems (or stories, art or music).  The word derives from the Greek ἀνθολογία/anthologia – literally ‘flower-gathering’ – meaning garland or bouquet of flowers.  It was the title of the earliest surviving anthology, assembled by Meleager of Gadara in 1st century BCE.

He called it The Garland, comparing small beautiful poems to flowers and the way his collection wove them together.  In the introduction, he adds the names of various flowers, shrubs and herbs as emblems to the names of the forty-six poets represented. The Garland of Meleager was arranged in alphabetical order, according to the initial letters of the first line of each text.  Unfortunately it has not survived, but it inspired the collected works that have become known and revered as the Greek Anthology.

This is an anthology of work by writers and artists in response to the theme of ‘the garden’.  My longtime interest in collaboration naturally led me to invite various writers and artists to Moorbank Botanic Garden when I was in residence there and I am happy for this exchange to continue here.

All photographs: Melanie Ashby.

 

Mother’s Hydrangea

 

 

Others flounce in blossom petticoats,

promise ripening flesh.

 

 

This one is green,

broad-veined, shear-edged, sappy;

 

 

taken from southern clay, holds steady

in the shift of northern sand.

 

 

Their fallen petals, pulled

wings, lie in sherbet drifts

 

 

while its slow blush spreads,

tinge to tint to blaze.

 

 

Hidden iron nails the colour.

Each bloom becomes a bouquet,

 

 

housing a kiss of ladybirds,

a throatiness of frogs.

 

 

Deepening the length of Autumn, preserved,

its scabbed parchment stays ornamental.

 

 

Cut to twiggy bone, it will return,

heads rearing beyond the wall;

 

 

casting a dewdropped web,

netting close its shadows.

 

Marlynn Rosario

 


 

 

Sieve

A simple thing of wire and wood,

it hangs on a nail on my garage wall,

a wooden-framed function wired in a word,

retrieved from a choosing –

 

item by item, all the leavings his life,

like a tide not long turned, had left behind.

I had his axe, his spade, his fork

and this, his garden sieve.

 

It was a sieving through in tears

of the what and who he was, of what we wanted

to hold on to, the weight memories have to carry,

so much that can’t be thrown away.

 

I remember him sieving down soil for seed  –

the sieve held horizontal, shaken from side to side,

until he had only the finest stuff, earth made tilth,

getting rid of stones, finding what matters.

 

Sometimes you have to shake things out,

sometimes keep hold of all you’ve got –

this sieve, a reminder, wired in a wooden frame,

to be lifted down and used when needed.

 

Robin Moss


 

Moorbank

Take refuge here. The garden is

a cup of breathing green

rimmed by the city’s noise –

the swell and drone of cars,

the lost dogs barking to go home.

It is a living habitat

for urban birds – a nest of song.

Roots are pushing deep below

concrete and tarmac.

Time could slow here to the pace

of ancient trees, or quicken

to keep step with the sudden poppy

whose orange tissue flares

and crumples in a day.

Cynthia Fuller

 

Rugged Rose

June morning

and you came cycling back

with wonders of red roses.

I’ll grow you one, I promised,

taking hold of the prickles

and, wrong season, wrong place,

set them in the earth.

You believed me—

only I had doubts

that dry summer.

But of all those slips,

one hunkered down,

spread roots, unfolded

its crinkled leaves and bloomed.

Cecelia McCulloch