Poetry Friday: A Botany Poem

I have been soaking in Amy Merrick's stunning blog An Apple A Day whenever I get a spare minute. Between that, spring being present and spring cleaning addling my brain a bit my thoughts have become quite blossom-soaked. Why fight it? Spring wants to be center-stage...so let her.

Flowers on Dancing Woman (Photo credit: TheArches)

My poem today is all about this very favorite season of mine...and maybe explains a bit of the madness we all feel suddenly at this time of year. May she ever shake her blossomy mane on my street....

Sunlit leaves in spring with and without backlight (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Once A Sensualist Dame...

Spring is doing her passionate tarentella
All down our block and the next one too
Pursing her bold red tulips and fiercely
Kicking up chartruese, grassy spears.
She shakes her tinkling forsythia mane
And drops rings of daffodil at every door.
She lays herself a rosy, blossom rug on
The corner under the lush magnolia tree.
Where she blows a flirty kiss of pear petal
Confetti after every oblivious, passing car.
She winks a forget-me-not eye in each yard,
Reaches her long, leaf-tipped limbs skyward
And performs a saucy, hosta-fringed hip-roll
That always leaves my old house open-doored
Lolling dusty rugs from every window.

Wall painting from Stabiae: Flora with the cornucopia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You can find the other Poetry Friday participants contributions over at Book Talk, today's host blog. Feel free to chip in with your own additions too! Participation is open to all....just link up and join the throng.

The Magnolia, And It's Guises

When we were in South Carolina last week.....Did I tell you that we went to South Carolina last week? We did. It was wonderful. Charleston is a beautiful town and I liked "The South" more than I thought I would although I'm still quite happy to be a Yankee girl.

We went down to visit my sister Lockbox. Isn't she cute? She's perky and be-curled and tans well and is generally four shades of darling.

Anyhow, all that to say....when we were in South Carolina, I had my first real encounter with the storied Southern Magnolia and I couldn't get over how striking it is. I feel like it's sort of an amazing Lego production...this stunning thing made out of all these curious parts. Check it out:

There's the breathtaking, (and scented I might add) blossoms and shining leaves....

 Then these funny centers that rise up out of the center of each blossom. Trippy, eh?

And the stamens which look exactly like a buch of strike anywhere matches scattered on the ground under the tree. I love the hilarious irony of that look-alike.

And then when the blossom finishes the petals fall and turn this beautiful fawn brown, and they look and feel exactly like suede leather! So crazy! A had to drag his wacky plant geek of a wife away from the tree. I could have looked at it for hours. I love the crazy bits of the outdoors.