I really can't pretend to attain to such genius

but the desire to build Giverny on gumbo clay,

caliche, a thin layer of soil with beaucoup rocks

approaches foolish grandeur.  There exists now

a detached palazzo of pink brick and moss trim,

once an open framework you could see through,

now solid against sky & clouds, horizontalities

of bricks and shingles laid one on another.

Cascading blossoms against lush dark green leaves

enclosing a greensward dotted with trees

is a dream that has yet to displace

the disorderly biomass arrayed, tufted,

across a polygon whose corners are theoretical

and marked with small orange flags.  The

purple flower clusters are weeds, verbena

bipinnatifida, bigger and bluer than the

seedlings carefully set out among the bark chunks.

Texas light rewards all the blooms with a

brighter interior glow.