Hellebores

the last of the hellebores

Have picked what may be the last of the hellebores and floated them in water. I think they look so much better like this because you can actually see their cheerful faces - and everyone is different. I let the insects do the pollinating to produce all these different varieties though some die hards go around with cotton buds and do it themselves.

In this vein I love the poem by Peter Didsbury called 

A Bee.

Became at last a bee.

I took myself naked to town,

with plastic sacks of yellow turmeric

taped to my wizened thighs.

I'd been buying it for weeks,

along with foods I no longer had a need for,

in small amounts from every corner grocer,

so as not to arouse their suspicion.

It was hard, running and buzzing,

doing the bee-dance. I ached

at the roots of my wings, and hardly yet discerned

that I flew towards reparation,

that in my beehood my healing had been commenced.

Words they use in this hive. To me it seems still

that clumps of tall blue flowers,

which smiled as they encroached,

had been born of my apian will,

in which to my shame I struggled for a moment,

and stained the air with clouds of my dearly bought gold.

Here's looking at you kid

 Don't Pixie and Phoebe look great? Somehow Phoebe managed to take this picture on her phone. She has just boarded the plane to New York lucky girl. I don't remember school trips being that good. I think we went to a museum once.

view out the back

 Whilst picking the hellebores I saw the magnolia is in bud which is exciting, though looking at previous pictures at Easter I saw it was actually in flower. Never mind - it's summertime on Sunday.

the magnolia is in bud now