Today’s poem is a straight-forward seasonal inspiration from the garden. I always cheer to see these tiny, luminous spring ephemerals. Sometimes the timing of their blooming has coincided with Memorial Day and I have included them in bouquets I have made to place on the graves of Corrine and Elvin Heiberg in nearby Oak Lawn Cemetary. Now, researching them for this morning’s poem, I am aware not only of the power of their beauty but of their powerful poisons–not sure I will pick them again. If I do, it will be with caution and even more reverence.
Zebra Iris LeavesZebra Skies Last EveningClose-up: Zebra Iris Bloom
For some reason, all unreasoning, I love stripes in nature and in the built world. Zebras are my favorite animals. So when I discovered this Zebra iris, oh, perhaps five years ago, I bought some for our garden. Some years they bloom, but even on off years, I cheer the emergence of their dark- and light-green stripes. Someday, I will find that perfect-to-me unicorn, the iris with black and white striped blooms. Meanwhile, I will enjoy such chance encounters with zebra skies (in my back garden last evening) and in the garden of someone who lives near the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I also read and re-read a favorite poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins, “Pied Beauty,” whose immortal lines I am sure you know:
Glory be to God for dappled things-- For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow....
For this botanical term, I also went off-road from Rosendahl’s glossary, since I had a “Z” inspiration near to hand.
Looking Back: After I wrote the poem, “Rhubarb,” on April 18th, Tim told me that “rhubarb” is not only a plant but also a baseball term! Does everyone else know that? It means a dust-up between players, fans, and umpires–think “ruckus,” “heated disagreement” or even “fisticuffs!” I wonder why the connection to “rhubarb”? Perhaps something sharp “barb” that one regrets (or “rues”)? If anyone knows the etymology, please let me know.
Looking Ahead: During the next four days in April, the last of this year’s Poem-a-Day Challenge, I part company with Rosendahl’s generative glossary. Look forward to (or look out for!) four Wild Card poems.
Photo: Felix Broennimann, polygon-designs (pixabay)Photo: Leslie Schultz “Polar Zebra”
Again, I am filling in the gap left by Rosendahl (no entries for “Y” in his otherwise extensive glossary.) I think yarrow, a member of the aster family, is very beautiful, and I am drawn to its pungent scent. I also love that it can, warrior-like, hold its own against the juglone secreted by our black walnuts. Today’s poem, “Common Yarrow,” rises out of my explorations into the botanical name for common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and the plant’s presence in human history in Europe and Asia. Thinking about the different histories and uses of this familiar garden flower helped me to get to know it a little better. I will be tucking a little more yarrow into our garden in the coming weeks!
Red Hot Pokers in Point Arena, CaliforniaHeadland, Point Arena LighthouseMount Shasta
Lacking a Rosendahl entry for the Letter “X,” I decided to use the term “xeric,” which means “dry” or “arid.” That term brought back recent memories of my trip with Tim to the California coast last August. The poem, “California Flipbook,” draws on these memories and images taken late last summer, when the air was smoky from wild fires was ablaze near Chico, and the natural world was at once fragrant and beautiful but also demonstrably stressed and fragile.
Wishing you blue skies, wherever you go today, LESLIE
Today, I was not inspired by the few terms offered by Rosendahl for the letter “W”, and so I began to think about plants whose name begin with that letter: weeping willow, walnut (done that!) wisteria, white cedar, white birch, white spruce, white pine, wax begonia, wild ginger (some in our garden soon), wallflower, watermelon, wood anemone, wych elm, wisteria & wood lily/trillium (I have already written poems inspired by these plants in past years), witch hazel, and…water lily, a plant I have admired for years and have been able to get to know better thanks to the kayaking skills of our friend, Tricia Smith, whose home is mere steps from a quiet protected lake that fills with these flowers as the summer advances.
Willows and water lilies. And Shakespeare’s birthday. These thoughts made me think of his character, Ophelia, in Hamlet, specifically the words spoken by Queen Gertrude to convey the pathos of her death off-stage.
There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element: but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.
These musings and this literary antecedent, along with memories of visiting some of Monet’s Water Lily paintings at Musée de l’Orangerie when I was a teenager like Ophelia, inspired my Shakespearean sonnet today. And I am grateful to my sister, Karla, for allowing me to use her spectacular images of water lilies to illustrate this post. May their shining beauty, and Shakespeare’s immortal lines, distract you from the flaws of my own hasty effort!
In the course of looking up water lilies, I chanced upon an educational video aiming to debunk or corroborate the widely held belief that the tubers of water lilies can serve as a source for food. This 15-minute summary of several controlled experiments–and definitions of such terms as “edible” and “palatable”–convinced me not to depend on supplementing my food stores with water lilies should I be lingering in the wilderness. (Lotus, apparently, is a different story, botanically and culinarily, than is our native North American cousin.)
