In the Perennial Garden

Blisters, thorns, insect bites and sunburn are almost discernible in the lines of poetry that relate a life of engagement with the land and water of coastal Savannah. Ann Sheils, and many generations of her family, have lived a life informed by the perennial garden that is the world. Ann was given her first boat and motor at 12, and before that learned camellia grafting from her grandfather--activities that transformed her appreciation of both the real world and the insubstantial one that underlies it, and that taught the need for a "compromised flowering."