Regards to Mrs. Church, and: Remember Me to Mrs. Church

Abstract

Regards to Mrs. Church, and: Remember Me to Mrs. Church Rick Joines Regards to Mrs. Church The things at flower shows that interest me most are precisely the things that one never sees in gardens. —Wallace Stevens to Henry Church, March 25, 1941 What is New York? Buying hats, seeing shows.Bookstores, yes, and the tedious seekingfor what one never finds. Despite robins in the park, sparrows singing, winterremains winter. Spring has been delayedsomewhere down South, but the flower show arrived in bloom, shimmering in climate-controlled rooms. I shiver and coat myselfin columns of color, drift among the artificers who whisper secretsin one another’s ears. Their words are pollen,and they are gods, creating cosmos that would never be otherwise. I hivein the ambrosial buzz. For them,only the beautiful is real. It needs no referent. Their makings do not dependon expectancies of seasons,on the illegitimacies of rain. Their sweetened-condensed sun made city streetsseem sublime until the subway shuddered,screamed, and then, of a sudden, stopped. [End Page 247] Remember Me to Mrs. Church It may be that the contemplation of cacti, while a weird occupation, is not completely satisfying . . . —Wallace Stevens to Henry Church, February 7, 1942 What is enviable has its seasons, too.Consider this: after considerable snow, a morning ice storm, an afternoon rain.That is what there is to contemplate in Connecticut. I am sketching desert cactiin warm breath on frosted window panes, wiping them away like windtussling Tucson palms. I have a batch of books, hair gone gray,a heart that is irregular, and worries that what I don’t remember having saidwas said all wrong. This is what kindles me here, where it is cold, as you may imagine,if imagination is possible there, where you are, warm, where,on another day, I’d rather not be. [End Page 248] Rick Joines Denton, Texas Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press