soapwort

Another woods-edge maple has gone red. Bouncing bet still blooms beside the porch, four months on.

Sunlight dulled by high haze. A squirrel in the garden grooms its genitals, then pulls a soapwort blossom close for an almost-kiss.

A male hummingbird buzzes in to the bergamot patch, but sips nectar from the soapwort instead. The catbird improvises on a towhee’s tune.

The first bergamots are in bloom, next to the first soapwort. In walnut-tree shade, the permanent shadow of a common yellowthroat’s mask.

In the overgrown garden, two soapwort flowers drip with rain. The small book of haiku I’m reading is perfect for swatting mosquitoes.

Hard rain for less than a minute followed by an hour of dripping, accompanied by a cricket chorus. Pale soapwort flowers glow in the sun.

Cool and quiet. A female hummingbird ignores the bergamot to drink from the soapwort, their plain, pale faces glowing in the weak sunshine.

A scattering of white in my overgrown garden: soapwort, bindweed, fleabane, snakeroot. The sky brightens. A towhee calls from the lilac.

A shimmer in the air thickens into drizzle, dripping from bedraggled rudbeckia petals, limp tubes of bergamot and the crisp, white soapwort.

The rain-drenched soapwort petals are showing a faint wash of pink. Is that any way to age? Evening primrose leaves have turned barn-red.

A hummingbird defending her patch of soapwort buzzes an ovenbird, who walks back and forth on the cherry branches in his big pink feet.

Soapwort, self-heal, mullein, Rudbeckia, butterfly weed: my garden exemplifies the messiness of any organization dominated by volunteers.