Intimate under the oaks: poetry in the botanical garden

Alice Pero caught in uncharacteristic repose

 

Bruce Williams rocking the hat

 

Turns out Cati Porter reads with her eyes cast down down down

 

Cindy Bosquet Harris looking uncharacteristically serious--maybe she was putting it on?

 



Lavina Blossom consulting the oaks as she reads

 

shali Nicholson prefers her given name lower-case and her hair fuchsia-pink. So pretty.

 

 Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Cindy Bosquet Harris, Cati Porter, Alice Pero, Lavina Blossom

 

I just hosted a magical event in the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden, a wonderful place where you see what California could be like if it had just a little more rain. Oaks, irises, milkweed; butterflies, towhees and finches; squirrels, rabbits, hawks. We read poems about Nature or Spring or the environment at five different places in this setting. My station was under old oaks, warm and cool, shady and dappled, quiet and alive with birdsong and wind in the many leaves. Above:  Alice Pero, Bruce Williams (rocking the hat), Cati Porter, Cindy Harris, Lavina Blossom, shali Nicholson (digging the hair), and a friendly group shot including me. Other readers as well. Also the sheltering oaks, an intimate setting where we immersed ourselves in poetry.