Mulch And Random Thoughts
Mid April. At present it is seventy degrees out-of-doors. Much is green as rain has been ample. The morning held for me a session of shoveling mulch into the wheel barrow, to dispose each load in beds containing shrubs and emerging green plants. The task is not as simple as you’d believe. The mulch is dark, almost black, has a pungent odor of wood decay and it is heavy. The point of spreading mulch about the landscaping beds is to provide cover for the ground, so that weeds are less likely to compete with the desired plants. Another important benefit is beauty. Mulch, distributed with care beautifies, winter’s sleep gives way to warmth of a closer sun, a detritus of grey-brown is concealed by a dark mantle of twice ground wood-chips.
While working I thought of T. S. Eliot, the poet and I thought about Aristotle the philosopher. Poetry and philosophy, two pursuits with a reputation for being useless. I am attracted to both. I thought about Aristotle’s book on Ethics which he wrote for his son, Nicomachus. The book is meant to be a legacy, a keepsake for a son. Indeed it is our endowment of Greek thought, prompting within me a sadness. Aristotle analyzed happiness, well-being, what it means to thrive for humans. I have observed that Americans generally are uninterested in the topic. We believe that we already know. We’ve pursued, and wrestled happiness into custody! Advertisers yammer on in the media promising happiness. The government tells me that I am happy.
And as for T. S. Eliot, these are the first lines from his poem The Wasteland:
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Thoughts somehow, coming from somewhere. I have not read the poem in many years. Perhaps I will reacquaint myself with it tonight. I shoveled, – each bend of my back and flex of my knees a reminder and a memory of what youth felt like. I might have moved load after load of mulch for hours then with no sore joints, or any concern about twisting a knee, or for heart afib symptoms. That was then. Now is April, these cubic yards of mulch are mine to move, memory and desire stir a worn body.
I wondered to myself whether a little life is left, in this thread-worn country?
