Pop

[poliphilo]

 I was sitting out on the patio in the cool of the evening and there was a snapping noise coming from my left- tiny, irregular, continuous- like small arms fire. Eventually I got up to see what it was. At first I thought it was coming from behind the gorse bushes- like some bird was doing it- but it wasn't, it was coming from the bushes themselves- and was the sound of the pods that had once been flowers popping open to release the velvety seeds inside.

"Well" I thought, "I didn't know that was a thing..." and then I remembered John Davidson's poem "The Runnable Stag"-  the first line of which is "When pods went pop in the broom, green broom" and realised I'd known it since forever but discounted it- because who'd have thought that poets might have anything to tell us about Nature?

P.S. I've been told since first posted this that broom and gorse are two different plants. Drat! Still they do look very similar- and both have pods that pop. 

Comments

[cmcmck]

I would because I do! :o)



Epitaph for the Elm

Wych elm they called you.
Magical deepearth drinker.
Moundguarder and friend of elvenkind.
Coffinwood you are too
With all the colouring
Of the barley brew from black to gold.

Dance elm too you are
May time magic bringer,
Black magic breaker and bowmaker.
Landmark and marker
You burn not well
But twist and shape and never rot.

'Elmen leaf big as mouse's ear
The plant barley, never fear'.
'Elm hateth man and waiteth' to kill
The dropped bough as coffin
And underworld barque
While bark makes cures for ills.

You are all gone from us
But stark skeleton stays
And spreads against the hedgend
To say we once were great
and you were awed
By our shaping of your own mortality

(c) Marianna 2021

[poliphilo]

Excellent!

[paserbyp]

Out of topic: https://paserbyp.dreamwidth.org/788455.html