107 Floral ballet miniatures: Gladioli’s pas de deux with her shadow…

   

It was a drab afternoon in the vase of Life and facing the very blandest of walls, even the former brightness of the floral ballerina in her perfect once vibrant, sunset salmon pink tutu could not resist the dullness of a rainwash of an ageing summer’s day. But now sadly fading, what was there to do?  Feel the approach of truth and time;  await the rising of the evening electric light, listen to the wall and reflect with the company of one’s shadows.

It could be a very fine dance if one let it.  Even Margot Fonteyn danced Romeo’s Juliet in her late 50s. Just because of a seasonless and blueless day, just because of continued English rain and overhanging coolness,  despondency did not have to take hold. She would with grace, gradually assume her new form, but enjoy her fully petalled memories with relish and gratitude. And with herself and with her imaginary ” once-loved” brought back to life from the high summer days of mid July, and who shared the same vase, rather than play the tragic heroine of the ill fated romance,  the future would instead, be set for hope and amends with the past. Summer did have to move on,  there will be no resistance as Autumn will begin to feel its way from tonight.

The musical choice, the Holst’s Venus,  Bringer of Peace, London Symphony Orchestra. Delicate and joyful as all gladioli are.

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© 2015 La Floralie

99 Day of the Elderflower

A Birthday post for Oscar

A warm day will progress the ripening of a flower’s full scent just as it does fruit, and when it does, the summer air, with a china blue sky above, can fill with happiness. Every flower will have its hour when it is most fragrant. The intention was to allow my share of wild elderflower on the local canal to sunbathe all day and become so totally imbued with its own fragrance that it would fall in love with itself. Then I would come along and pick it to make its own love potion – elderflower cordial.

On yesterday morning, whilst on earlier tasks in the day, as I passed simple, but proud gardens,  the sweetness of orange  blossom and sweet peach tea from roses pervaded in the surrounds,  as I passed. The warm air was doing its job, this mix of perfumes was good few metres from their blooms.The day would bode well.

With their petals outstretched to maximum,  and with bushes and stems flowered to absolute profusion, these were no longer the shy, soft  and slow emerging, first blooms of Spring.  Summer is about  attention seeking moments , with knowledge acquired from the past, and like the confidence of a flirtatious teenager, these flowers made no secret about the desire for indulgence.  Their eagerness was to be utterly seductive to the senses of the unsuspecting passers by. This was apparent, not just in the rising, bewitching aromatics.

The petallics from even from the shy, old fashioned wall loving  hollyhock, from last week to this week, post midsummer, has deepened into a glowing magenta concentrate.  Any six legged insect friends could not be more openly tempted to attend a nectar party up and down its stems.

On china blue sky days,  with  fluffy puffy clouds,  we now know that past midsummer, between the extremes of humidity, and dry heat, because of the changes in warm moisture and light, the season is racing against itself, impatient to intensify and enter its very best,  and being aware of such short-lived pleasure, we wonder “Why can’t Nature always be like summer days?”

Whilst grasses dry quickly and turns to straw, one remembers that to ensure the most fragrant offering of an elderflower potion, and possibly to mix subtly with new gooseberries, one must not forget to let the day turn to evening with love potions. Remember to pick the best when immersed in the warm sunlight of the day and pleasantly drowsy, nothing else will do.

Elderflower Love Potion

25 heads of elderflower, some closed ones

Immerse in freshly boiled water with orange and lemon zest

Cover overnight

Sieve and bottle the next morning with honey/sugar

Share with generousity, but use sparingly. Make cocktails, soft drinks or add to fruit salads. Use its bottled fragrance to remember the tender warm and fragrant days of summer, blue skies and green walks and in my case 26 years of being a mother. The labour was not a summer walk as I remember…but the end product was definitely intoxicating, a bed of baby was a very good result. Happy Birthday Oscar. Always keep love potions in a secret, well protected place.

© 2015 La Floralie

86 And it was a curious thing

These early days of Spring.

As new light entered into our North, the innocence of the Hawthorn blossoms became very stirred. They were beginning to realise their situation was not at all in their control.

The safety of the hedgerow thicket was not a guarantee, only the changing weather could be constant. Against the ageing lichen on their twigs, what might be in store for the papery and demure with just five petals to define it in all elements?

Huddled together, the handsome Magnolias, not yet open, were in awe, silently intuiting the sky. Around the corner, on the ground, one of the toughest plants in Suburbia, was curling inwards at a ‘happening’.

The Happening

At this time of year, when Spring flowers starts to emerge, sometimes angel wings can be seen to trail right across the sky. It is a very rare viewing.

Only when the white blossom opens, is the signal released for all nationalities of angels to stretch the length of day. In doing so, their wings elongate considerably, and consequently have to be released.

Once this happens,  the April showers will fall. When all buds and trees crowd to watch this unique spectacle, they know that actually their own Spring rain truly comes from above. They just know. It is very scientific.

All angels wings, are made of purest, unpolluted water vapour. These defy gravity and float upwards to rush across the world, underlit by the setting sun. Only visible to the small and humble.

Miraculous.

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© 2015 La Floralie

76 Birch

       

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© 2015 La Floralie

74 The Meanderthal

  

1 

Anaesthesia lives the eons as an Unawaked. A birthless lamentation.

No strands of biology to wire a breath.  Memories, a blank odyssey.

In state, a floating, faceless emoticon wrasps of Nature’s joys.

“..dull, dull, dull, yes, yes, yes…”

2 

The meanderthal, who stirs the atmosphere in vapoury voyage,

Where bloodless drift shifts space to chaos – is Anaesthesia.

Her unperfumed bouquets deconstruct the woods in hush 

As steeliest moleculars crumble to particularate white.

3 

Airy whisperings can whisk the ozone thick to standstill delusion.

The Milkshake Mutterer, with her hoary small talk creates.

Her favourite flavour in truest imperceptibilty. 

“Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothingness.

4 

“Nothingness is lux, is nothingness”.  Anaesthesia’s absolute power.

‘Nothing Ventured’, the snowfluff flotilla of still passage descends.

As Lux smothers tree seedling youth into lightless hiatus.

‘Nothingness’  a breathless tomb pillow talks.

5 

No sat nav can guide the white calamus quest from ravage, but Sol.

As morning star, its spectrum rouses life’s liquid on helieborus.

Early Spring’s perfect petal cups, the Chloroformed awaken.

A downy feather lies still, as slow water flows once again.

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The WordPress Poetry 201 course offered the following inspiration as part of its challenge on Day 5.

DAY 5

Fog = as the theme.

Metaphor = a form of visualisation through words, which  “brings two terms together, which are not connected,  but will make sense”.

Elegy = the poetic form. “An elegy is traditionally, pairs of verses, couplets, where the first is slightly longer than the second. It also has to evoke the feeling that something is “irretrievably gone” – such as a moment, a place , a feeling.”

This was certainly such a challenge. It took me time to think about all this and when I did, I realised I wanted to spend a little more time on it, and then became much more engaged,  when I could. I hadn’t expected to be so drawn. But in and out the writing,  I also wanted to feel Nature again and try and feel the reality of my elegy where possible. The photos from the path of my street on the afternoon walk of February 28 2015.

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© 2015 La Floralie

73 Animalists between the Concrete

1

UNSEEN CREATURES

with undertaker features

which wriggle and burrow

with their tubes of elastic to mash

and melt oldest plant plastic soft

workings with hard machination

waste and dead bodies

they eat the most squalid

~

Blind thieves whose underground struggle earns title

Kings of the Soil  will squirm their best for the Earth

and grandest crowns of emerald beauty whose glisten

is nothing without the giant Unseen

~

Forms of the lowly, the lonely, the slimiest

these creatures from darkness

disappear

from the

Light

the most

indisputable

unimaginable

Eaters of Germs

Those creeping and crawling

but constant hardworking

the humble

in service

E

a

                                                                                            r

        th

w..

…./\/\/\/

…..orm

S

   

A Spring pink flower, once a pink seed and friends with a pink earthworm,  watches the ground to see its old friends at work.

Today, a view of The Earthworm’s Holiday Home, and a shot underneath of  good soil in the making. One worm was too private for the lens.

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2

A FRESH UNDRESS AMONGST THE SUCCULENTS

and sculptured sandtrail tells the story

where a Saharan beauty once slithered soft

with silent speed as a shark

in constant rhythm

and fixed focus poised for unpredictability

moving in increasing surface speed

towards the unsuspecting

scaled to strike in any place

at any time

in burning heat

before a sandstorm after

dark

in

                                                                             ——-:}

l

e

ss

t

h

a

n

o

n

e

Ssss

e

c

o

n

D

F                     L                    A                   T

---

3

THE ARCHITECT

Sits

UP

high

in

a

tree

home

woven from

twigs and leaves

        most pReCariouS most stable

   most STRONG most soft

w

a

r

p

and

w       e      f      t

 

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4

SPOTTY APHID SWEEPER

                                                         f                                      n     g e    r   c  r a w  l i n g  on  my     finger.      l                       i       

y                          l

a                                     ‘  T

w                                N

a                     O

y!!!     D

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This post has taken inspiration by the WordPress Poetry 201 course.

 Day 4

Today’s challenge is to include:

 Animal = the theme

Enjambment = the use of the end of one line becoming the start of the next

and creating flow and also new interpretations

Concrete = picture making with words

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© 2015 La Floralie

71 Today’s journeys

      From root to stem to reach a star

Winter’s journey’s wish twinkled thoughts afar

As my branch bends here

And leaves rustle just there

A summer thinking sky bird sings the stars with a prayer.

~

 This short ditty was written via the WordPress’ 201 Poetry Blogging Course, where the second day’s task has been to create a limerick with alliteration on the theme of “journey”. But alas, no alliteration has sprouted forth as yet …. 

 The photograph was taken in West Midlands, UK  January 2015

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Haiku

2 Fates

A wasted journey

Wrong time, right place. Lost in space

End without a start

Blown by the time clock

Forward to life’s best exit

New start with good end

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 wet

            when wet swells a seed              

its all about the water

taking its travels

~

on a journey up

skywards through root, stem, leaf, sky

only to dripdrop down

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© 2015 La Floralie

56 A Winter Weekend Escape

FRIDAY 23 JANUARY  to  SUNDAY 25 JANUARY

DAY 1  FRIDAY 23 January

Exploring January’s Beautiful Blues

EVENING  FRIDAY 23 January   

Private View 

Magnolia’s giant seed heads in abstract performance at dusk.

 

Spider engineering

The strength of a fragile spider’s web can just be seen in partnership with the magnolia. A spider defines the horizontals and verticals of space. Through its own construction and engineering skills, it connects “mini-world” from one branch to another. All can share a spot in viewing a sundown, because of the Spider Brunels and Spider Eiffels.

Human nature works by imagination as well as inspiration.

On reflection, on what was written above, the straight spider’s thread, appears to be an overhead electricity cable.  This will now be checked, whilst author’s creative licence is sometimes necessary, here, observations must be as accurate as possible.

However, rather than express disappointment,  any spider worth its 8 legs in exercise,  could definitely travel up a cable or two and construct a good web.

Even at great risk of electrocution, a spider’s skills in spinning yarns and creating lace and nets, can also be used for trapeze and high-wire walking. At the end of a day’s efforts, watching a January sunset is just reward for any air-breathing arthropod. Something that in Winter, no hibernating bumble bee could ever be able to achieve, but on Sunday Day 3 we will see how a bee’s time will be spent in other ways.

For a weekend escape, this Saturday morning is another blue, but very cool, Winter’s day in England.

© 2015 La Floralie