A map of a garden can be made before the garden itself exists or after everything’s been planted. Having tried both strategies, I can say that it’s easier to do the mapping beforehand; straightening out measurements and transferring them accurately to the page after the garden already exists can be a difficult task. But then, this is what descriptive cartographers do on much larger scales, for cities, landforms, landscapes.

This week’s poems take as their subject someone from the “before” camp: Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York City’s Central Park, among others. Olmstead wrote,

Nature shall be employed upon it for generations, before the work he has arranged for her shall realize his intentions.

We can forgive Olmsted, who died in 1903, the he’s and she’s. He’s right that whether they’re in a field returning to forest or a park just planted with roses and fruit trees, plants require time. (Fortunately for impatient gardeners, there exist annual plants, which grow happily and well on smaller timescales.)

Moriah L. Purdy, the author of the poems, is working on a manuscript that considers Olmsted’s work and borrows from his papers. About the quote, which serves as the epigraph for the manuscript, Moriah writes, ”I think this both describes his philosophy behind his greatest parks but I also hope/believe this sentiment parallels what time does for the language of poems.”

Incidentally, the vagaries of html formatting for poetry make me long for the days of typesetting. These handsome poems look best in FireFox.

Thoughts about them? Please share below.