I had a good laugh today. It was a beautiful day out, and I enjoyed the ability to run around to some flower gardens.
Now, I’m normally not the biggest fan of flower gardens, because I always find fauna more interesting than flora. But I it was a simply beautiful day out, and it was a wonderful opportunity to go walking with the parents, so I went and enjoyed myself. And the gardens really were beautiful—the azaleas were out in full bloom, and the tulips were just on the decline. It wasn’t the peak for the other flowers, but the garden itself was lovely as well.
It was set up in sections, divided by ivy-covered walls and sculptures. There were nature-poems carved into the rock of the wall. Most of them were romantic, which doesn’t score many points in my book. By and large the sloppy ‘nature is the be-all end-all of existence’ sort of thing. Not much thought, lots of fluffy imagery.
It put me in a cynical mood, but pleasant one—the wort of mood where you’re throughly enjoying being a curmudgeon.
Did you know, for instance, that when flowers are in bloom, they aren’t doing it to be pretty. They’re having sex. Lots and lots of sex with as many partners as they can get their hands on. Plants normally don’t have genders, or secondary sex traits, so they’re not choosy. Walk through a garden in bloom, and you’re walking through a veritable vegetable orgy.
The sculptures I mentioned earlier were almost exclusively the traditional naked-people. The lovers embracing, or the curvaceous nymph dancing amongst the flowers, not much minding that her shirt has fallen off, or the baby cherub peeing in the fountain.
Now, I should point out that I don’t mind nudity in art, and that the sculptures were very beautiful, and that the plant life themselves were simply gorgeous. There were huge Live Oak trees (which refers to a specific breed, rather than a state of animation), which spread out and interlocked their branches, wider than they were tall. They were majestic, and made me feel very small, which most plant-life doesn’t manage to do very well.
Nevertheless, the nagging perception at the back of my mind that I was walking through a land ripe with romanticism, free-love and softcore porn filled me with a certain amount of internal giggling. And then, as we were wandering a small roofed-area of the garden devoted to sculptures, there was one amidst the plethora of Greek goddesses and nekkid fairies, that depicted St. Francis of Assisi. He was in a monks habit, and huddled upright, but in the fetal position. He had a haunted look on his face. And no, I am not making this up.
It was entirely too much, and I started laughing, earning a number of stares and ‘tut-tut’ sort of looks from more civilized people.
It was a good day.
As just a bit of book keeping, I’m about to add a page to the ‘pages’ navigation entitled “The Woven Thread.” It has the information on the poetry newsletter I’m running, so check it out.
~DK
The Storyboard 