Tower Of Flower

I never had my own amaryllis. Nobody ever gave me one, and I wasn't likely to buy one for myself. Whenever I buy an indoor plant, all the other plants in the shop pitch in for the funeral luncheon.

But this Christmas someone gave me a bulb. And a kit. There was a little pot and a hard little puck of soil that magically fluffed out to fill the little pot, and then you set the big bulb in the little pot so that it sticks partway out. It looked like soup from the Middle Ages, the kind that's mostly boar's head poking out of a little moat of broth. Meat joints are flung to the mongrels and serving wenches overfill their dresses. It was a big-ass bulb, is what I'm saying.

You toss in a dab of water and stand back.

Now, I have sung about an amaryllis. Our madrigal group used to hack through that one. Not much to the lyrics: Adieu, sweet amaryllis, For since to part your will is. I like making rhymes, myself, so I'm familiar with how clunky a lyric can get when you're trying too hard to make a rhyme work. The composer John Wilbye was looking at his amaryllis, and all he came up with for a rhyme was "Willis," but he didn't know anyone named Willis, so he tried out Do tell, sweet amaryllis, you know where Mother's will is? but that didn't make sense, so he ended up with "since to part your will is" and then he had to say good-bye to it. Anyway, the song was a hit. Then he went on to write Farewell, my dear bergenia, For soon we won't be seenya, and Alas sweet marigold, You old.

 

The big bulb didn't do anything for a few days and then a little green knob poked up. Well, I'm familiar with the miracle of plant growth. I have seen entire gardens fur up with weeds if you turn your back for a few hours. My Echium "Mr. Happy" shoots out a ten-foot spire of flowers audibly. If you don't yank a holly at the two-inch-tall stage you'll have to take a chainsaw to it. Plants are amazing.

But that's the thing about amaryllises: people like them because they grow in the dead of winter when nothing else botanical is happening. So they really stand out. You can't look away. My amaryllis thrust itself straight up, a big, turgid, meaty thing it was, and there was something fleshy swelling at the top, and ultimately four fat, lusty flowers exploded out of it and presented to the world like baboons at a sloth convention. I stared in wonder and embarrassment. What in the natural world pollinates such a thing? I visualized a big bumbly bee lumbering in there like a fat old dude manspreading in a sauna in a tiny towel, his entire reproductive apparatus swinging among the stamens.

It's rude, especially in the winter. There should be pajamas on that thing.

And if it were not cocky enough, lo, a little batch of strappy leaves yearned below it like an entourage. 

I know what comes next, because I sang the song. To part its will is. It's going to fold up and go away. If it takes longer than four hours, I'll have to call the doctor.

The Silver Swanne

I miss our madrigal group. I do. There's something awfully satisfying about making music with other people. Even if our instruments are not in tune, and ours weren't, it's fun. Nobody pays much attention to anybody but the first soprano, and with Dorothy nailing down that spot, we probably didn't sound too bad, from a distance. Madrigals are particularly fun because they're written with tight, interesting harmonies. Even the alto gets the occasional star turn instead of the usual mid-range mayonnaise that's only in there to keep the tenors from bumping into the sopranos. You do not want to bump into a soprano. We altos sacrifice our bodies to keep the peace and keep down the chafing.

I didn't used to be an alto. I sang soprano in the church choirs, and while anything above high F was painful to me and anyone else around, I could hit it in a pinch. I'd be in the front of the group on account of being small but never sang the really high parts. Guess you could call me a minute second soprano.

That's the worst thing about quitting church, if you don't seek out other choral groups. You quit singing, and in no time your range compresses down to a wafer. Since the alto parts rarely ask much of the singer, it works out. You get to doodle around with your allotted five or six notes but you do make a contribution. You're not the steering wheel or the engine but everyone likes cup-holders.

The madrigal group met periodically. Oh, we cut loose with our merry lads and bonny lasses, but we couldn't quit until we'd wallowed in The Silver Swan. The Silver Swan, in case you don't know, is a long drawn-out murder of a very depressing bird, and almost impossible to sing without clutching your chest and keeling over and making gack noises. The poor silver swan, living, had no note. Didn't sing a lick until she was at death's door, and then sang her first and last and sang no more. Farewell all joys! Oh Death, come close my eyes!

This madrigal should most properly be sung in a bathtub with razor blades.

Once we'd slain the swan, we were free to go, but we usually had to knock back a tankard of ale first just to regain our desire to live. Orlando Gibbons wrote The Silver Swanne in the early seventeenth century and it's his best-known effort, but he did bang out quite the oeuvre, hitting many of the same themes (musically, this is known as a "rut"). For instance, there was his Daintie Bird. Yet another bird, this one encaged, and so like the composer! Both imprisoned, both singing to please a woman, but unlike the daintie bird who sings to live, he sings and drops dead.

Or "Farewell, all Joyes," in which he begs to "let me die lamenting."

It's the dang swanne all over again.

Orlando Gibbons died at age 41, which is said to have surprised his peers, but jeezy peezy, they should've seen this coming. He hadn't written himself any alternatives. They called it apoplexy at the time, one of those antique general-purpose deaths, like consumption, that could refer to any number of things but got the job done. Three hundred years down the road, genius pianist Glenn Gould declared Gibbons his favorite composer, but Glenn Gould would fold up and fall apart if the air temperature wasn't just so, and groaned all the way through his pieces, and basically died of hypochondria. An apoplexy, actually. Cue the swanne.

Hark! Hark, I Say!

"Let's go caroling," Dorothy said, and it sounded like a swell idea to us. We had a group already. We got together every month or so to sing madrigals.

Not that we sounded all that good. Dorothy was an A-1 soprano, sweet and true and lacking that bellicose vibrato that would get a lot of sopranos swatted if they weren't so scary. The rest of us were of a lesser grade. We had one voice for every part including first and second soprano, and at least you could tell which of us belonged where, because we usually drew inside the lines of our ranges, although some of us scribbled. It was a lot of fun to get together and do all the fa-la-la and hey-nonny-nonny: a lot like a recorder group, in that it was way more fun to be in than to listen to.

We scavenged some other volunteers and we met at Dorothy's apartment in NW Portland. There was some discussion concerning how to go about this thing. This was forty years ago, and yet caroling was already old-fashioned by then, and we weren't sure if there were rules. Finally we decided to go up to the first house we saw and ring the doorbell. We didn't want to seem disorganized, so we agreed on a carol and the number of verses, first. We rang the doorbell.

"Just a minute," came a forlorn baritone, followed by shuffling sounds, and doors banging shut, and locks opening, and finally a large, morose, unshaven man appeared at the front door, still working his way into some scuffs, and clutching a bathrobe shut with one hand. Oh boy, we thought. The first recipient of our cheer! And off we went into Joy To The World, in four-part harmony, our bright holiday mufflers wrapped tight, our wool caps jaunty, as the night chill ruffled his leg hairs. Heaven and nature sang, and sang, and sang, and then danged if The Lord didn't go right on and rule the world with truth and grace; our victim sagged visibly; in reconstructed memory, the man grew shorter and shorter and may have sprouted a thermometer; he was approaching panic as we repeated the sounding joy, and repeated, and repeated it; what were you supposed to do with carolers? Somewhere in his childhood pre-Depression memory he was certain there was a protocol, his mother would have known, there was supposed to be mulled wine, or baskets of cookies to dispense, but isn't just this kind of thing the reason he'd gotten a place by himself in the middle of the city? The ghost of gratitude flickered on his face as we appeared to be winding up, but no, we had a plan, and no mutineers; we finished up with We Wish You A Merry Christmas, complete with the good tidings to him and his kin, which were not strictly necessary, and we bid him adieu.

Well. That left something to be desired. It wasn't at all clear that any joy had been transmitted. We amended our plans to merely loiter outside the next house and not knock at all. We decked the halls, or something. Fingers pulled the Venetian blinds slats apart and then shut again. We decided to just walk down the sidewalk and sing as loud as we could. One carol after another. It was fine. After all, people had had TV for decades by that time. Nobody could be expected to know what to do with an authentic caroling assault. Then we came upon one of those U-shaped courtyard apartments that prevailed in that quarter of town. We walked into the center of the courtyard and we Had At It. We Let Fly.

Hallelujah! Relieved of sole responsibility for properly appreciating unsolicited carolers, people opened their windows. Leaned out. First floor, second floor, third. Smiled. Clapped. Gave thumbs up. Joined in. The acoustics were tremendous: we sounded good, and not just Dorothy. One or two residents were crocked enough to invite us all in for some version of a toddy. We declined, but it was nice to be asked. Hey nonny, nonny, it was nice.