Yesterday, i walked around Boston’s greenway, and came upon this wonderous sight. A public art installation by Janet Echelman, made of polyester cord resembling fish netting. It was shimmery at midday, and can only imagine what it might look like at dawn or sunset. What a grand canopy to , say, perform Shakespeare under!
Indira Ganesan, Janet Echelman’s art on the greenway, Boston 2015
Indira Ganesan, Janet Echelman’s Public Art, boston2015
I wanted to include photographs from the first blooms in my garden. My computer, the cloud, the gods are not permitting. So I will describe my first discovery.
Imagine a three-pointed miniature iris, a dark purple, touched with bright gold drops like eyes:
Then the tiniest viola:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Viola_(plant) by Phillipe Clement.
Finally, a pair of Johnny jump-ups:
The viola is also called Heart’s Ease, and no wonder. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it plays a more potent role. Oberon sees Cupid’s arrow find a target but it is intercepted by the silvery beams of the chaste moon. He tells Puck,
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
May we all see these western flowers in fleeting spring, heralding the way to midsummer.
Indira Ganesan 