Yesterday—it was the last day of August—I visited the city/farm garden behind the Hingston Hall residence at Concordia University (Loyola Campus). I’ve visited this garden for many year; it is thriving and the herb garden is growing better than ever. This was a good summer for gardening!
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| Elf dock |
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| Common primrose |
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| Milkweed |
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| Worm wood |
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| Mullein |
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| Bee balm |
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| Horse raddish |
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| White sagebrush |
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| Chives |
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| Leaving the herb garden |
It’s 33 C. What’s good for the garden may not be good for the gardener.
On the corner of Mayfair and Terrebonne; honey bees love these hydrangeas.
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| August 2016 |
Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects’ aimless industry.
Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry
Of color to conceal her swift decrease.
Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece
A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.
Poor middle-agèd summer! Vain this show!
Whole fields of golden-rod cannot offset
One meadow with a single violet;
And well the singing thrush and lily know,
Spite of all artifice which her regret
Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!
So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky
of this black August. My sister, the sun,
broods in her yellow room and won't come out.
Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume
like a kettle, rivers overrun; still,
she will not rise and turn off the rain.
She is in her room, fondling old things,
my poems, turning her album. Even if thunder falls
like a crash of plates from the sky,
she does not come out.
Don't you know I love you but am hopeless
at fixing the rain ? But I am learning slowly
to love the dark days, the steaming hills,
the air with gossiping mosquitoes,
and to sip the medicine of bitterness,
so that when you emerge, my sister,
parting the beads of the rain,
with your forehead of flowers and eyes of forgiveness,
all will not be as it was, but it will be true
(you see they will not let me love
as I want), because, my sister, then
I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones,
The black rain, the white hills, when once
I loved only my happiness and you.
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| The interesting thing about this photograph is the butterfly's proboscis, it's the long tube extending from the butterfly's face to the flower on which it sits, and is used to extract nectar from the flower. You can also see the butterfly's antennae, the two protruding wire-like appendages on its head. |
