Katharine Whitcomb

I inherited a love of herbs from my mother, who always had herb gardens wherever we lived. As soon as I could afford a house with a yard, I planted a big herb garden of my own for fragrance and beauty, for the pollinator-attracting blossoms. I had a circular bed of majestic sage plants there in my first backyard in Minnesota. A friend of mine once remarked, “You have enough sage here to heal the world!” I still think about those plants!

I went on to live in the high plains desert region of central Washington State for twenty years, where Mediterranean herbs grow beautifully: hedges of lavender and rosemary, thyme, sage, woody herbs, but mints didn’t do so well and required watering. When I moved to Vermont three years ago, I had the good fortune to plant new flower and herb gardens, and to expand existing ones. I also had room enough to let various mint beds run wild. 

“Ode to Mint” celebrates the joy of rampant health and growth, the zing and exuberance of mint networks, vining underground, linked suckers popping up in every available patch of dirt and light. 

In Vermont, beautiful Oswego Tea, Monarda, flourishes in a damp sunken corner of garden, red and fuchsia topknots blazing away. Lemon Balm fills out in light-green mounds of citrus-scented rounded leaves. I can’t help myself: I plant mojito mint, spearmint, chocolate mint, peppermint, orange mint. All these mint varieties (the wide Lamiaceae family) have benefitted humans for our whole existence—their presence in our lives is calming, medicinal, exemplary—and connect us to our long plant-human relationship. 

“Ode to Mint” is from my new manuscript, The Earth Clock, which is a collection of poems with a structure inspired by cycles depicted in Medieval art displaying twelve scenes of tasks and activities that took place in rural areas each month of the year.