The Poet’s Chair By Lynne Bittner

June 1, 2006

      I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars....I  awaken everything to life. 

Hildergard of Bingen  twelfth century mystic 

Under a young oak tree, and overlooking my garden sits a lawn chair. It was a cast off from a friend, and immediately claimed by our daughter Dorothy as her “Poet’s Chair”. She spent a lot of time in it last summer - in quiet contemplation and reading poetry.  When she left for college late last summer, it remained as bird song in the meadow slowly vanished and the garden faded; while the oak leaves above it turned russet, then finally gave way, dropping one by one to the ground. Through starry, cold, clear nights, November wind and rain, then - snow and the silent winter, the Poet’s Chair kept it’s vigil facing the north star.

With the spring thaw, pushing up from the earth, young green heart shaped leaves of violets emerged all around it, the beep of the wood cock in the western meadow began to punctuate the twilight hours. Chickens, freed from their winters’ incarceration came scratching through the garden, rustling the stiff, brown oak leaves, clucking contentedly amongst themselves. Soon, swallows darted overhead, their pale breasts reflecting the rosy sunset. The flutey song of the wood thrush echoed through the woodland, the baltimore oriole whistled in the high swaying branches of the wild cherry trees, and catbirds, towhees and robins made the budding hedgerows alive with their lyrical chatter. 

Spring rains brought a quickening, the grasses in the meadow grew rapidly. Cascading brambles of wild blackberries leafed out - sending out their thorny purple tendrils in search of places to root. The wild apple tree became covered with pale, silvery green buds, and the home of a robins nest. The honeysuckle next to the Poet’s Chair - extravagantly covered with pink blossoms, adrone with wasps and bees - perfumed the air with its intoxicating scent.

Long rays of the late day sunshine illuminated the large mounds of catmint, geranium, daylilies and garden phlox in the garden. Stems rose above the sword shaped iris leaves like wands - delicate papery sheaths protecting the swelling dark purple buds. The ferny filipenula sent up her tall slender stalks, and a globe thistle nearby, with its deeply toothed leaves, crouched in the thick of the garden like a dragon. 

Now the oak tree begins to unfurl its velvety crimson buds and I visit the Poet's Chair frequently - admiring the chartreuse catkins dangling from the branches above and buttercups ablaze in a corner of my yard - awakened to everything in life.