This is a beautiful pile of lilac flowers from the bush in our front yard. I’m making lilac simple syrup.

Today I was sitting on a bench at an Amish nursery near Loogootee, IN, listening to a couple of people enthusing over the flowers they found. Anyone that excited over flowers must be a decent person. Of course, I’m sure there are senators or defense department officials or CIA agents or private equity investors who enjoy gardening. Maybe. Theoretically. But I think it works as a rule of thumb.

A love for growing things seems to be one of those enthusiasms that come with age. Perhaps there something about the patience and humility required that does not fit well with the zeal and vigor of youth. Or maybe the desire to nurture life in some of its beautiful and fragile forms only comes to those who have been beaten down a little.

Treebeard was very disappointed in Saruman. He could have been so much more. At first he seemed eager to learn but Treebeard noticed that he never reciprocated (an essential feature of any relationship with nature). Rather he seemed only to take. Even in those days, Treebeard speculates, he may have been turning to evil.

He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.

Another rule of thumb: never trust a person who sees the natural world as a means to their own ends.

“We all come from first peoples somewhere in the world. We have not always been trammelers of the land.”

I read years ago (can’t remember where) that the difference between leftists and liberals is their attitude toward capitalism. Liberals want to reform it; leftists want to abolish it. I don’t know how commonly held that definition is, but it’s been useful to me.

I’ve joined a small, local writing group. For the next meeting, I’m working on a fable-ish piece of fiction, which is new for me since I’ve never written much fiction. I’d worked out bits of it but it all felt rather bland–until last night when I got an unexpected idea. Now it’s coming together.

Re Spotify nonsense: I used to think I couldn’t live without Spotify for music discovery. Then I got a new phone and never reinstalled it. Then I stopped the paid subscription. Like Twitter, I haven’t missed it. All you need is a record store, Bandcamp, and friend recommendations

Loreena McKennitt sings a version of Yeats’ “The Stolen Child”.

First lilacs of the season.

Lilac will be blooming before long. Sweetgum leaves emerging from the buds.

Three poets have been insisting on me getting to know them better: Yeats, John Clare, R.S. Thomas. Oxford World Classics editions of the first two are on the way. Ronald Stuart will have to be patient a while longer.