
Prosartes lanuginosa
Their ringing isn’t obvious;
you need the ear
of an anchorite to find them.
Listen for water tricking under rocks,
a black-throated green warbler’s
five wheezy notes.
Look beneath creased leaves
& zigzag branches
for a bell of quiet yellow-green
that flares into a six-pointed star,
anthers facing outward
around a stout style—
all of which must drop away
to swell the bell’s heir,
a scarlet clapper.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- How to Know the Wildflowers: Preface
- Spring Beauties
- Red Trillium
- Painted Trillium
- Miterwort
- Marsh Marigold
- Goldthread
- Foamflower
- False Solomon’s Seal
- Early Meadow-Rue
- Dutchman’s Breeches
- Appalachian Barren Strawberry
- Wood Anemone
- Wild Geranium
- Mayapple
- Golden Ragwort
- False Hellebore
- Fairy Bells
- Trout Lily
- Hepatica
- Yellow Violet
- Jack-in-the-Pulpit
- Starflower
- Dwarf Ginseng
- Bloodroot
- Cutleaf Toothwort
- American Golden Saxifrage
- Blue Cohosh
- Ambrosia artemisiifolia
Nature’s beauty and style are always palpable and authentic. But all this must “drop away to swell the bell’s heir, a scarlet clapper”. Beauty begets beauty. The blooming process.
(But if I gave in to mnemonic “irrelevancies”, I would see something ominous in “scarlet clapper” — she with the scarlet letter, he the harried sound-picture synchronizer. Ah, perilous ambiguities!)
I see poetic integrity in the limning of the flowering process. Liked it, Dave.
Thanks, Albert. The word-smith in me really wanted to go with “glabrous clapper,” and then when I decided that would be a bit too obscure, “hard red clapper.” But the berries aren’t that hard, I said to myself, and so settled on the present formulation.
Like the way it veers into more ethereal ways of finding (anchorite, birdsong) before coming down to the bell clapper!
I can see why you wanted “glabrous clapper.” Really rounds the air in the mouth to say…
Yeah. At least “scarlet” still gives some el alliteration and keeps the rhythm.