Gary LeBel: Moso

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It’s suddenly evening as you slip out of the bright afternoon and into the bamboo’s dark, luxuriant corridors. With so little light reaching in, you sense the leaves drink deeply of every available ray of sunlight to grow such densely interwoven canopies above. The shaded paths between the clusters of Moso are softly cushioned with years upon years of cast-off leaves, and so your footsteps hardly make a sound.

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Introduced originally from China, and then via San Francisco in 1893, their provenance adds an unexpected dimension to what at first was merely a name on an exit sign: “Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens”, a large hidden tract maintained by the University of Georgia on the outskirts of Savannah.

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The little bamboo forest enclaves, each autonomous, are strung together over the acreage like a chain of islands. Wandering among them, you move from one country to another rather than merely between species. Part-time resident of the nation of Black Bamboo, an egret lends an exquisitely-wrought tension to the moment as it darts stealthily in slow motion along the grassy shore, its bleary reflection keeping abreast on the mill weed below.

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a quiet pond . . .

minnows swimming

through my eyes

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by Gary LeBel

Cumming, Georgia