Field Notes: Poetry Inspired by Nature By: Jaime Eschette, Director of Marketing and Communications
Ars Botanica
Fall in Santa Barbara only seems to be missing, as here it eases,
doesn’t drop, doesn’t declare itself spectator-ready in gaudy hues.
But
greens find a deeper peace. What
flowers, fades, leans as it must to dirt. Still the desert willow hoists George Yatchisin (Photo: Greg Trainor)
W
hen George Yatchisin isn’t working as a food, wine, and cocktail writer here in Santa Barbara, you may spot him under his favorite oak (Quercus spp.), taking in the view of Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s Meadow Section and the mountains beyond. This special spot “slays him” every time he visits. We’re honored to have George join us in this issue of Ironwood to share his latest work, “Ars Botanica.” You can enjoy more of George’s work in his books “Feast Days” and “The First Night We Thought the World Would End.” He is also the co-editor of the anthologies “Big Enough for Words: Poems & Vintage Photographs from California’s Central Coast” and “Rare Feathers: Poems on Birds & Art.” O
its last
feathered and flowered salute to the heat
these foothills cradle long into the calendar. Weep not for it, actually a
trumpet vine
hearty enough to rive rock, its blooms a mauve and violet blast. Instead,
learn each instance of manzanita,
fierce
and ferrous branches a mere inch thick,
leaves lapping skyward, green tongues of fire. McMinn, Pacific Mist, Carmel Sur,
Paradise.
A garden’s a poem, after all, what we create to treasure the obvious precious we would manage to forget, to foul.
— George Yatchisin Desert willow (Chilopsis linearis) (Photo: Randy Wright)
Ironwood 41
