Good things only #3 / sevenling (roses)

Finally the teaching-year is done for me, with just graduation to go next week.   So I’m hoping to find more time for reading and writing now.

It’s been a challenging year, and the last few months in particular have been difficult. So here is a floral pick-me-up, for myself and anyone else who needs to stop and smell the roses.

1.  The lilies are just starting to bloom! First the Asiatics, but soon the Orientals and trumpets will be blooming too!

2. Hearts-ease – also known as Johnny-jump-ups or violas – are in bloom in all sorts of unexpected places. These first snuck into my garden ten years ago as stow-aways in a pot of something else, and they’ve spread to come up year after year in pots and bathtubs and garden beds.

five red tulips in a white pot IV

Holding aloft their fiery cups,
flames they have caught
drop
by
drop
day
by
day
as they fall from the sun,
they are full now,
filled to overflowing,
their bowls brimming
and their petals saturated.
And yet still they are insatiable,
glowing like greedy coals
that are not dimmed by the sunlight
but fed by it.

Fourth in the “five red tulips in a white pot series” – and yes, there are only four tulips in flower. One was eaten by something. But 80% is pretty good. 

five red tulips in a white pot III

How can I describe
these whorls that have risen from the soil?
Somewhere between green and blue,
cyan, teal-green…? Or… yes… Persian-green,
this name so apt for the colour of tulip leaves,
that mountain flower

transformers

For the dVerse prompt “creepies and crawlies“, a sonnet about slaters:

When the sun is up and the birds about
you can find them, if you know where they creep
into the crevices, all flattened out –
the slate-grey slaters, all huddled in sleep.

casting nasturtiums

We finally got a decent frost and it’s killed off a bathtub full of nasturtiums. So I pulled them all out this afternoon and threw them to the chooks, who were very happy to have them.

Cookies and Cream, sweet as a dream
but rarely ever an egg between.
Ninja’s a handsome Australorp hen,
she used to lay well, but that was then…
The same is true for the five misses Brown,

how many hyacinths is enough?

I have sown many mice in the past week, and to celebrate I have ordered 50 hyacinths. I have tried to cut back, but the end of season catalogues are irresistible. I don’t even know where I’m going to put them all. I’ll just have to buy some pots. 

 

There is a line somewhere between
optimism and idiocy.
But herein lies the difficulty-
once it’s passed it can’t be seen.

So on I go, keeping my eyes on
another boundary now instead,
I’m charging on, full steam ahead
racing towards the sanity horizon.

But still, yet still, my resolve is hard,
Can you hear that keyboard tapping sound?
I’m buying more things to put in the ground!
Please, someone take away my credit card…

pretty mice all in a row

I dug the ground, I planted seed,
in the night, mice came to feed.
I bought more seed, planted again,
and in the night, yet more mice came.
Now I’m out of seed, and I’m out of nice,
I’ve laid the traps, and I’m planting mice.
and once I’ve planted a nice long row,
above the mice my seeds will grow.

and in ha’sonnet form for Stephen, here is the next episode:

I planted seed
all in a row.
The mice did feed,
no seed did grow.
Now planting mice
in rows all nice,
to feed the seed.

 

There is currently a mouse plague in western NSW. It’s not as bad here, but there are a lot more than usual. 

I’ll count my sweetpeas…

An envelope of optimism
arrived in the mail today.
A purchase made with wisdom?
I cannot as yet say.

Now they’re spread upon the table
all these packs of possibility
each neatly filled and labelled –
with hopes of harvests yet to be.

…and there were lilies: IV. choir

A choir of colour,
they raise their heads and open
their mouths to shout out
a hallelujah chorus
of silent, deafening joy.

…and there were lilies: III. Lady Alice

Lady Alice has recurved or reflexed petals, like the tigers. But is too refined to be in the same tub, and would never admit to being closely related to them. 

Lady Alice bobs
a curtsey to the breeze, and
turns her petals up –
a reflex she cannot help
when embarrassed by the bees.

This series of “…and there were lilies” poems is an epilogue to “jubilate lilium (let there be lilies”).