bluebells and bell-grass, haibun

December, and the first month of summer is upon us. Walking up the hill is an effort now in the heat. But I stay on the road in the sun, where any snakes are easier to see, rather than walk in the long dry grass or the leaflitter under the trees.

This late in the year the spring flowers are all finished, apart from the native bluebells – so different from the fleshy European bluebells that finished flowering in the garden a month ago. These fragile sky-blue stars seem to float above the ground, facing upwards to catch the blue pouring down from the summer sky.

Ahead of me the ginger-mutt, that skinny dingo-child, trots along. Rattling the bell-grass as he stops, nose to the ground, he scents a rabbit or a roo. Bolting away he leaps over fallen timber, and dozens of butterflies, common browns with their dot-painted wings, rise and scatter like dead leaves. They flutter about for a few moments, then disappear again, camouflaged against the leaflitter.

bluebells and bell-grass
and clouds of brown butterflies
floating in sunshine

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