Building the Greenhouse Part I

steel rods for the greenhouse awaiting their curve

When you set out to build a greenhouse you are on a romantic quest. The end aim of which is a place for infant plants to grow, for light to dwell, for warmth and potency mixed together in a kind of happy haze. To do it you must wed yourself to geometry for a time, and then to industry.
There is something gleeful in setting out to make a portion of a curve materialize in a few pieces of wood and iron. The pursuit of the geometric ideal, by means of power tools and screws- all to the end of bending by force steel rods to coincide with this arch.

“Euclid alone has looked on Beauty Bare” wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay
It hums and buzzes in the mind as you grunt and struggle with the hoop bender. So ironic that poetry is batting about the mind during such a brute effort.
Not everything in our group endeavor at fashioning our greenhouse arches was…graceful. Spouses bickered a bit…Parents were frustrated at times with fumbling children…work had to be done, and done again…but as we worked for physical consonance of this steel and that arc we were required to leave off these divergences and pull together in this work- converging despite ourselves.

“Let geese gabble and hiss but heroes seek release from dusty bondage into luminous air”