The Anti-Feng Shui House

There is a house along the route of my morning walk which has, for it's front yard, a planting of trees and shrubs which is almost but not quite perfectly misaligned, misplaced, mis-spaced and mis-selected to produce not just a space that is impossible to appreciate--or use--but impossible even to walk by without an inward shudder for the lack of artistry, design--grace even.

I say "almost but not quite perfectly" because to say otherwise would imply intent, consciousness and awareness to the planter of this monstrosity. And there was a planter. This is not a happenstance of nature. Nature, indifferent though it may be, is natural. There is nothing natural in this layout*. The precise misplacement of each item proclaims its anti-naturalness. Yet there is a sincerity to the place that precludes one from proclaiming "Here be Irony!"

*Besides, when this town was originally laid out, the entire peninsula was scraped down to the limestone. Perhaps one in 10,000 of the original trees was spared.