Jeanne Wagner

The city I grew up in, Sacramento, is known for its trees and recognized for having more trees per capita than almost any other city in the world. My own obsession with trees and plants began there, on a street lined with a canopy of California Sycamores, and where every house, no matter how modest, had a backyard filled with strawberries, hybrid tea roses, peaches and apricot trees. In my mind, I’ve never left those backyards. Perhaps that’s why, when regarding nature, I’ll always be a child, an admirer, a window watcher. A dilettante. Still, I recognize that the plants and trees around me, even if sometimes anonymous, aren’t only “landscape,” that outdoor version of decor, but are part of my memory and dreams, and of the way I react to the world.

“The Daffodil,” was inspired by witnessing, during a vulnerable time, the startling “resurrection” of a naked-looking bunch of supermarket-like flowers into a gorgeous, almost miraculous show of beauty. Every monotonous cubicle in my workplace was alit with Wordsworth’s golden daffodils. My poppy poem is more about my daily conversion into someone who has gradually become more sensitive to the plant life of the urban landscape. The practice of writing itself has forced me to expand my knowledge of the natural world and to look beyond my own reactions and metaphors in order to learn how every living thing is designed for communicating, processing and adapting to the world around it. Much like us.