I bring some seasonality indoors with rotating decorations, mostly artificial versions of whatever is blooming outdoors. Pondering three displays (for spring, summer, and fall) sends me in an unexpected direction.
Category: seasons
Elegy for a Green Insect
First few cold days ask
“Who can overwinter?”
Katydids cannot.
When I wrote the original version of my haiku, I was aware that some insects can overwinter as adults, even where winters are harsher than in the Mexican mountains favored by monarch butterflies. Bark beetles are a dreaded example. Seeing a lethargic insect shaped like familiar crickets (but bigger and more colorful), I wrote a haiku voicing the unlikely hope that the insect (later nicknamed “Kermit” after the famous green frog) might be able to overwinter:
Last few mild days ask
“Ready to overwinter?”
Cricket moves slowly.
A helpful comment by Sue Ranscht on my post with that haiku prompted me to dig a little deeper. Kermit was a young male katydid. Winters where I live are mild enough for his mother’s eggs but still too harsh for him. Kermit ran out of time before maturing. That makes the middle line of my original haiku more like a taunt than a sincere question, so I revised the haiku to be an elegy for Kermit the katydid.
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Green on Green
Last few mild days ask
“Ready to overwinter?”
Cricket moves slowly.
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Coping with the Clock Change
My way does work for me and may work for U, if U can avoid evening appointments.
Dark Flame & Wicked Grin
Happy Halloween!
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Stubborn?
Ignoring hints
from tulip tree and maple,
elm stays green, for now.
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Maples — Where and When
Two kinds of maple are common where I live. Sometimes called “swamp maple” because it can thrive in swampy areas, red maple can also thrive atop rocky hills and in the intermediate conditions of landscaped yards. Sugar maples are the other (and more finicky) kind.
The wide range of suitable habitats may partly explain the wide range of turning times for red maples. While they turn early in swampy areas, some of them in other areas turn as late as oaks. Those that turn at a middling time don’t seem to mind being upstaged by the best of the sugar maples:
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Black Hole in Galaxy of Leaves
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Ferns & Fall Foliage
Autumn is a season when images accumulate faster than I can write appropriate poetry, so I will sometimes post an unsung image.
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Goldenrod
Ah, such a cheery yellow graces the month of September. Alas, ragweed flowers out of sight at the same time, giving goldenrod a bad rep among some people with hay fever. While ragweed sheds pollen to the whims of the wind, goldenrod holds pollen that will be picked up and transported by insect pollinators. You’re not likely to inhale any goldenrod pollen unless a bee crawls up your nose.
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Rhododendron Rescue in 2023
Where I live, it’s normal to get a big snowstorm around the middle of March. It’s not normal to have so much heavy wet snow on a lopsided rhododendron rooted in such soft thawed soil that the whole bush topples over. Could it saved?
Riff on a Quote from a Song
From a cloudless far horizon …
to a gap in dense fall foliage …
to an old window covering …
« There is a crack in everything. »
« That’s how the light gets in. »
~ Anthem by Leonard Cohen ~
I quoted from the song the way I and some others remember it. The phrase “a crack” is repeated in some transcriptions of the first quoted line, but the line scans better w/o the repetition.
Cracks ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #341
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Deciduous Trees
Lifeless? No, leafless.
They hold their breath all winter,
exhale leaves in spring.
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Dusted for Fingerprints
Snow on lawn.
Tracks from last mowing,
seen again.
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Last Few Nights of Old Year
Seen thru bare branches
that thrash in an angry wind,
Xmas lights shimmer.
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What’s This?
Many things make more sense when seen from a distance in their context, rather than up close and isolated. Here’s one for the current season.
Mellow Curmudgeon 