Garden Physic
Garden Physic
Also by Sylvia Legris
The Hideous Hidden
Pneumatic Antiphonal
Nerve Squall
Iridium Seeds
Circuitry of Veins
Copyright © 2021 by Sylvia Legris
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First published as a New Directions Paperbook (NDP1516) in 2021
Design by Marian Bantjes
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Legris, Sylvia, author, illustrator.
Title: Garden physic / Sylvia Legris ; with maps and illustrations by the author.
Description: New York, NY : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2021. Identifiers: LCCN 2021031344 | ISBN 9780811229906 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780811229913 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.
Classification: LCC PR9199.3.L3945 G37 | DDC 811/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031344
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
ndbooks.com
and gardens exist, horticulture, the elder tree’s
pale flowers, still as a seething hymn
— Inger Christensen
(translated by Susanna Nied)
The Yard Wants What the Yard Wants
caragana
Plants Reduced to the Idea of Plants
The flourish, the fanfare, the febrifugic feverfew.
An oleaginous emplastrum—with horehound leaf,
olive over olive, the oily parts, the dry.
An antidote for the unblessed, the blistering,
the dourly flowering flora, the corpse flora.
Greek turned Latin turned inordinately
angled and filed.
Plants reduced to the idea of plants reduced to woodcuts
(circa 16th century) reduced to Victorian floor tile.
Travel by river snail, by liver of mad dog.
By God Greek Juniper! By monoxide of lead.
Travel under government of the moon
with arrach wild and stinking.
Flower and seed through August from June.
The butcher, the barber, the oil-boiling cauterizer.
The vegetal assiduousness, the pennywort diligence.
Plants Further Reduced to the Idea of Plants
1st: Confirm
the morphological integrity of the garden body.
Ignore the blood and hairy root saw,
the skin under its nails garden claw.
Expose the corpus hortus siccus,
the corpus exsiccatae.
2nd: Field
the spiral-rung, the stitched, the strung,
the Cerlox-spined, the glue-gunned,
the Duo-Tanged (le cerveau bilingue),
the never perfect perfect-bind,
the Peterson-worthy field guide.
3rd: Forget
the church fathers, the philosophers,
the appropriate and inappropriate authorities.
Forget the know-it-all anthologists,
the squirrelers of curios and collectibles.
The Garden Body: A Florilegium
1
An ensemble of aromatics
A pepper of bees opens the pupils.
Chorus aphrodisia, mariner’s root,
bright sky and night star, heavenly
rainbow. Amethyst, azure, blue
flower de luce. Flowering ring.
…
White archangelic the bee nettle,
the dead nettle. A hide of nettle cloth,
of finely nerved sedge. Take heed
the edges, the pipes, the passages,
the petal corridor, the corolla tube.
…
A blossom is a throat. Rose-oil and hip.
A ripped rose is a voice organ, time-cut
and curt. Royally red and confidence-
keeping, redder than Mars, redder than
hot days and parched, Venus on the lips.
2
A verge toward red
Muscle rose. Flesh rose.
Then rustling redshank rose.
Vines ascend the arch of aorta.
Mercurial, the climbing nightshade,
the bundle-branched bittersweet.
…
White-spotted hellebore under Jupiter
and wind. Oak lungs, jovial lungs.
Sea rush blows the lungs with sweet rose,
carmine and sanguine, flaming red.
Candleberry fires the blood.
…
Red is antispasmodic, cardiovascular.
Great garden patience of Mars.
May-blossom, hawthorn. Spring
gushes red-veined with sorrel, bloodwort
below Jupiter, red dock for longevity.
3
Ringing with wasps
Venus stokes the throatwort.
The good leaf. The rose noble.
L’herbe du siège slackens
the isthmus of the fauces.
Gash-red and choking rose.
…
Double tongue. Bay laurel.
Daphne of the sun.
Yarrow charms wasps,
snuffs the inveterate headache.
Daphne sings the bees from the ears.
…
The voice reeds are a Queen Anne’s lace
of wasps. Mercury abounds with buzz
and wild carrot, jumpstarts speech
with hoar-strange words, a gargle
of hog’s fennel and brimstonewort.
4
Touchwood and rue
Under Leo, composure.
Herb of grace. Anti-magical.
Vinegar of the four thieves.
Poison against poison. Rue before regret.
Touch wood ruta sets the garden free.
…
Lightning sulfur the garden prone
to primrose and paroxysm. Pellitory-
of-the-wall quells old hacking. An old cough.
A new moon courtesy of wild clary.
Eyebright. Clear eye (en toute bonne foi).
…
Sweep away the broom, the burdock,
the beastly antipathy between ash tree
and adder. Snakeweed. Dragon’s blood.
Devil’s bit. Serpent’s tongue. Wickedness
(a weak moon) licked & licked & licked.
5
Flesh and blood
What a commotion! Wild rocket, a racket
of wake robin, cuckoo point, the clear
caroling rise & fall. Volatile dog’s mercury.
Dog’s-grass. Dog rose. Hot fits and cold
metallic blue. The indecisive indigo.
…
So the garden bellyaches. So what
the gripes? Rows rife with tormentil,
gallant herb of the sun. Five fingers,
flesh and blood. Stamina, life’s long
thread, root-red, the unhindered heart.
…
Leaves respire and rain returns blood-veined
and blood dock, blood-colored juices. Red poppy
a headache. Heartichoke the downhearted.
Loosestrife calms the fugitive scarlet.
Sweet slumber. The fleshy rootstock.
6
Erasmus Darwin,
his Botanic Muse
Enlist imagination under the banner of science.
Flora attired by the elements.
Sea lavender, sea holly, sundrops.
Jacob’s ladder reaching ether.
Wind rose. Sun rose. Water grass.
…
The loves of the plants. (The economy of vegetation.)
Root, pith, lobes, plume, calyx, coral, sap.
Air distributes the seeds of names.
Windflower, digitalis. Tipsy and ethereal.
Trade winds, vital light. Seeds within seeds.
…
Start from the soil, and win their airy way.
The fifty-seeded heart’s delight, saturnine
and doting wild. Heart’s-ease. Herb constancy.
Pensée … An opening. Call-me-to-you. Kiss-her-
in-the-buttery. Meet-me-in-the-entry.
7
Rose
The yard wants what the yard wants.
Bloom of Ruth. Breath of life. Blush.
Charisma. Compassion. Imagination.
Ebb tide and nostalgia. Groundcover
and climbers. Floribunda. Abundance.
…
A hybrid of bruise and steep, petal and dreg.
Lungfuls of lamp flower, rose campion,
rose of heaven. The moon shoulders roseroot,
rosy-colored stonecrop. The neck laced with
French rose, common rose, pomander of roses.
…
At the center of the garden the heart.
Red as any rose. Pulsing
balloon vine. Love in a puff.
Heartseed, heart-of-the-earth.
A continuous flow of red.
8
List
Nosebleed, staunchweed, sanguinary.
Thousand-leaved root of yellow.
Thousand weed with leaves like feathers.
Small birds flirt herb-of-Venus’ tree.
If my love love me, nosebleed and yarrow.
…
Feverfew-profuse June and July.
Agueweed, sweating-plant,
boneset with yellow thrum.
Venus yields to water.
Boneset breaks the sun.
…
Past mudwalls and molehills,
where the cowslips and the lungs moss,
hedge bells, morning glory and the hundred-leaved
rose, all the livelong organs rose—
a catalogue, a desire, a wish.
9
Life everlasting
Chaffweed whups the chin-cough.
Venus hiccups dry wind and sandy rows.
The garden ruminates cudweed,
creeping roots June through September.
Pearl-flowered. Eternal flower.
…
Take flower-gentle.
Take knitbone and knitback.
Ass ear. Blackwort. Slippery root.
Saturn’s orbit comfrey-picked and sea-goat-prickly.
Take sea wrack, knobbed wrack, bladderwrack.
…
Forget-me-not. Forget-me-not. Forget-me-not.
Mouse-ear to the ground. Borage for courage.
Self-heal. All-heal. By crook or by hook-heal.
Paralysis and palsywort the garden
supplants fool’s parsley with imperatives!
10
Viola organista
La voilà! Horsetail and paddock-pipes.
A hurdy-gurdyish drone.
Pansy-meek with cattail and fretted tension.
(Love-in-idleness.)
The over-thinking viola.
…
Liverwort, liverleaf, liverweed. A low sun
and Jupiter presumes three-lobed hepatica.
Water hectors wind and wind blows sound
into lungwort, bladderwort, kidneywort,
the kidney-leaved sower weed, the hartwort.
…
Dame de coeur. The crowning heart.
The garden wants it all: leaf, stem, root,
the whole shooting match shoot system,
timbre, pitch, fully chromatic rows,
heart trefoil and arssmart under sun.
Where Horsetail Intersects String
quillwort
Equisetum hyemale (Rough Horsetail)
after a photograph by Karl Blossfeldt
Let the fossil record show:
Green of two winters;
Small scale fluctuations;
Multi-tempoed scouring-rush;
Rough scrub-music horsetail;
Amplified 40-fold brusque bray;
Silica-encrusted corrugations;
A living fossil cross-section;
Reedy wetland habitat;
Pewterwort the sonorous tin-herb;
Cone an E-flat apiculate pitch.
Ferns and Fern Allies
The great fern radiation.
The origin of the dysfunctional family: spores.
Friend or foe? True fern or ally?
Extend a hand the fingers curl like a violin scroll.
The chin rests on a wet scouring rush.
Flat vascular depression upsets the pitch range.
Acoustics thick-walled and globose.
A music of neither seed nor flower.
Terrestrial chimeric. An amalgam.
Bladder-fern. Adder’s-tongue.
Where horsetail intersects string.
Where tone color is quillwort.
Spiny-spored or large-spored?
Bristle tips or conspicuous tufts?
Upper bout an upswept moonwort.
Lower bout a smooth woodsia.
Diminutive growing in low fronds.
Rhizomes erect to ascending in perfect fifths.
Catkin-Bearing Trees and Shrubs
Pollination by wind and a long-held note.
Spring’s purr neither feline nor familial.
The woody scale of a fruiting catkin.
Flared like the bell of a B-flat clarinet.
Head-to-head air currents. An auditory swing.
A tête-à-tête of anthers and stigmas.
A semitone lower? Floral bracts before leaves.
The precocious-flowering pussy willow.
Palette of open alluvial woods, seepage slopes.
Hoary willow notes of marly bog and fen.
Sweet gale and myrtle. Myrica’s waxy catkins.
Fragrance a wave that propagates air.
Timbre? Deciduous or evergreen.
Drupe-like fruits. Wing-like bracteoles.
Or the red-brown bark of false mountain willow.
Longitudinal splits. Yellowish overtones.
Violet
A garland to fend off the dizzies.
A garland to keep the quinsy at bay.
March closes the seeded umbilicus.
April opens the musty secundina.
Equinox the half-melt rot.
Easter the thin asquintable light.
Viola
Under Venus the sugared wound, the heart-strung-up, the viola d’amore.Under Venus the Pliny-prescribed, the horsehair hanked—not plucked, tugged—the singly sung (catgut kidney-cuffs the caterwaul, a knockback to the viola bastarda). Kittenish! A scalloped flirtatious border—floridcordial pansies (candied adoration). Viola odorata. Parfait d’Amourish.
White Flower II
after a painting by Agnes Martin
Canvas
Springbeauty. The eye unblanks the mesa. Solitary & leafless. White tackstem. Common yarrow. Wild plum. A disciplined plumb line. Boundless butte: a perfect geometry. Midvein math of spreading sandwort (100 yellow disc florets). Fibonacci the daisy tidytips. The radially symmetrical rose heath, ray-bright.
Heather the bell-ringer. Mountain pea, pony beebalm, phlox. Fringepod & pricklyleaf, the dense rosettes of Buckley’s yucca. Four-o-clock verbena the high tableland wavers. Repeating alkali marsh aster. Saltwort. Saxifrage. Mudbrick and grid. Adobe. Abide, in unblinking light. Blazing star. Sacred datura.
Taos
Sweet Alison. O sweetclover. Chickweed. Chicory. Alyssum. Alpine pennycress, Rocky mountain pussytoes, watercress and bittercress (heartleaf). Tufted evening primrose, cutleaf & pale primrose, gravel ghost, angel’s trumpet, shade-loving angelica. Desert rosemallow, marsh marigold, smallflower sand verbena.
Springbeauty (lanceleaf, scattered). Blooms for blooms’ sake: star lily, woolly bluestar, fringed grass of Parnassus. Raspberry (New Mexico). Popcorn flower (Arizona). Plateau pepperwort. Pepperweed and carelessweed. Doubting mariposa lily. Cream cinquefoil. White violet. Desert zinnia. Two-toned everlasting.
Macklin
Blue-eyed Mary. The tall meadow rue, the veiny meadow rue, the northern blue-eyed grass. Eyebright and downy paintbrush. Wild white geranium, wild wild strawberry. Whorled milkweed moreover, white flowers in terminal umbels. Sandwort, the dry dry soil. White-prairie clover, white-flowered parsley, gentian.
Springbeauty (the linear-leaved). The many-flowered aster, the rayless aster, willow aster and rush (leaves level, sessile, stem- clasping and steadfast). Bindweed, buck-bean, bellflower. Then cow parsnip, ox-eye daisy. Cow-wheat & milkwort. And lastly, anemone (heartache-flower): long-fruited; wood anemone; tall.
Root of Scarcity
To sow the remote morose root.
To sow the virtuous standby.
The backup fodder-crop suffers not
from seasonal vicissitudes,
mildew and blast, caterpillar attack.
Under Saturn sing the golden-sickled beet.
Under Saturn sing the ringed mangelwurzel.
The great turnip (the dick reuben!).
The pickled paucity-strick stew.
Corn Crowfoot, Corn Buttercup
Ranunculus, little frog, grenouillette,
Mars blisters above neap flood and neck,
mustard-nasal, the rheum and runny river,
adenoidal, tongue-sore, the decoct & decant,
the goats, the pigs, also cows turn their backs,
worms compelled to flee the earth—the toxic
hop, the spirit-inflammation, the fiery.
Grasscloth
Two-weight brocatelle. Historic plaited gold.
A wide-looming lea. A no seamed sea.
Raised, ribbed, leaf-sheathed and spikeletted.
Handloomed broad-glumed brome.
Yards and yards of yellow and yellow.
Grasscloth (Millefleur)
Flatlands of irregularity.
Scroll. Littlescroll.
Trail-patterning Flora.
*
So wields the needle-
and-threaded grass, the dyer’s weld,
the thousand-flowered dye book. Wild bluebell,
bellwort, bugleweed, the ecclesiastical ding-
dong, the chime, the chintz of Sistine and Trinitas,
woven silk and cotton, poppy linen.
Under the block-printed willow bough.
Where hawthorn and hyssop collide.
A back-lit haute-lisse crashes the colorway.
Wallpaper
The walls a garland of woe. Poppy and Wreath. A wind-around of lineage and plant. Velvet and vine. Larkspur on saddened madder. Chestnut cocktail, iron acetate. Autumn rose. A ghost of acanthus.
William Morris in His Disappointment Garden
Damp-squib grammar of pretty things and wild mignonette.
Quercitron bark. Old fustic’s persistently pissy stamen,
the peony-stained wallpaper. Despite the conspicuous hot spots,
sun, chrysanthemum, coreopsis, yellow’s a letdown nevertheless.
The repeating motifs? Killers. Jasmine twill, jasmine trellis …
Trifoliate moth-traps these wool and cotton undersellers.
Envisage Little Chintz or Corncockle (where the flower plays
but a minor part), or an indigo-discharged rose. And the bugs!
Kermes, cochineal. A scuffle of ripe and ruin among rosebud
and campion, columbine and vine. So heartsunk am I of tusser silk
and cotton velveteen. Fuffling if nothing this art of color or perish.
Lacking compassion for lac-dye and up to the elbows in vermillion
melodrama … I’m dyeing, I’m dyeing …
Floral Correspondences
Nature must prick us with her courages also.
— Vita Sackville-West
Frost and snow. Our poor garden.
— Harold Nicolson
milkweed/fern-leaf golden elderberry
My Darling,
A disagreement of winter and spring and I refuse to be disconsolate. Light incurs ice. Suns sink on suns. My jottings of flowers crush the last chilly flourishes (plots and plots of ideas!). I am flush with anticipation. (You in all my notes to self.)
—V.
Dear,
I imagine everything in full fig.
Dug up and dragged.
The stone coping.
The windows’ weepy wails.
Under your gumboots a grumbling of over-the-top bulbs.
Pale noses yet to surface.
Slug bait at the ready.
The ground rumbling.
—H.
My Dear Love,
Mad March dreams
of crane flowers,
birds of paradise.
Strelitzia reginae a deft cut
of bird and flower.
Sunbirds perch and powder
their breasts with pollen—
pollinators who sail the seasons.
(A rare plant who prefers birds over insects
am I.)
—V.
My Dear,
Haphazard jottings.
A lawn of daffodils.
A waterlogged orchard.
A union of heat and damp.
A lone osmanthus, white-clustered, apricot-smelling.
Balsam poplar takes me by the nose.
What endures?
Viburnum in full flower.
Recklessly planted corners.
My faith in deadheading.
—V.
My Darling,
The threat of frost supplanted by a dummy run of white and grey.
I’m scheming lavender, clematis, primrose. A corner of lilies and camellias. A low feast of grey foliage. Artemisia and cotton lavender.
A high yew hedge. Grey and white edging: Rabbits’ Ears, Savior’s Flannel.