Horticultural Studies

Twice, already, the grim reaper has visited the meadow by the river path. On his first pass, he mowed down a stand of grape hyacinth, barely past their prime.



This week he came for this wild garlic before it could bloom.



He crushed, flattened and ripped everything in his path.



There was nothing elegant about his work,



nothing gentle or precise,



nothing loving or attentive or reverent.



He was preparing the earth for his compatriots, the despoilers, the thirsty ones.



He hated the unruly, wild, untamed, uprushing green. It was radical, dangerous. Subversive. It had to be quelled.



It was full of conspiracies -- erotic, artistic, religious, political. Consorts of troublemakers and rabblerousers, crosspollinating ecumenically and promiscuously.



You can trust a lawn. A nice, flat lawn.



You can play golf on a lawn.



And why would you want to take pictures of crummy old weeds, for goodness sakes, when you can take a picture of young lovers taking pictures of themselves ?