The Evolution Of The Garden Poem by Cole Swensen

As Albertus Magnus instructs us
that shade is dearer than fruit and the trees be not bitter ones let them
not be
bitter please
pass me the sun

There were three distinct types of medieval garden: ornamental, orchard, and
ones populated by animals and birds where we're allowed only in shadow and
falter

walking on windows: hortus in which viridarium; virgultum; Espalier the king
or peach with its
branches so arranged
that the ripening fruit mimes
constellations and passes through the entire zodiac in all the proper steps
: must be grafted, apple, pear,
manor, and
there go the deer! There were
carefully selected and ornamented spots for viewing
all of geometry
devolved from planting
the three:four:five triangular section sang at night: O
Master of the Embroidered Foliage painting his eyeball green we were walking
through the fine tissue of which the ripping sound at the back of the picture
on the bottom of the world that
we could live here
gardinum
hundreds
of acres set aside for watching animals.