THE ROSE IN MY GARDEN

A horticultural House That Jack Built—with the infectiousness of a nursery rhyme, an abundance of child-wise visual detail, a rousing return-to-square-one climax. The first stanza is picture-book genius: "This is the rose in my garden/ This is the bee/ That sleeps on the rose in my garden." There is the garden, flora and fauna; there, in abeyance, is "the plot"—for what sleeps must awaken. Successively, other flowers join the rose: "Hollyhocks high above ground," "marigolds orange and round," "zinnias straight in a row," "daisies white as the snow"—and, lastly, "tulips sturdy and tall," "sunflowers tallest of all." (Gardeners will regret—but mostly forgive—seeing spring tulips alongside summer's-end sunflowers.) Meanwhile one or another garden denizen—snail, butterfly, beetle, hummingbird, ladybug, ant—makes its way (often, from literally outside the picture) into the scene, to go about its customary business unnoted except by any and every child. Then, a disruption: "This is the fieldmouse shaking in fear"—who'll be chased by "the cat with the tattered ear," tearing through the flower-border, waking the bee. . . who (wordlessly) stings the cat, leaving "the rose in my garden." An old English floral design, in effect, come to exuberant life.