Kristin Camitta Zimet
Amaryllis
Artist Statement: Talking & Listening to Plants
My favorite beings in Tolkien’s books of Middle Earth are the Ents, tree-shepherds who call humans “hasty.” That’s me—impatient, leaping from project to project, metaphor to metaphor, hope to desperation. An Ent, by contrast, takes all morning just to hum its own name, which always includes the story of its home ground.
I come back often to the green world for that sense of the fullness of time and the anchorage of place. Though my work as a poet revolves around words, plants teach me another way to live, in a parallel, wordless universe. I go to them for a slow communion, like the spread of sap. I go for a certain grace—to let what surrounds me enter me as I enter it; to accede to the necessary rhythms of life; to practice rooting, steadiness, and resilience. As I nursed my husband through his last long illness, these gifts helped me to stay the course.
Photo Credit: Deborah Carlon
Kristin Camitta Zimet is the author of the poetry collection Take in My Arms the Dark and has poems in journals in seven countries. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where she is a Master Naturalist and volunteers for the Virginia Native Plant Society, the State Arboretum of Virginia, and The Nature Conservancy.