Sunny and hot. A catbird skulks in lilac shade. The unfurling beaks of wild garlic point in all directions, like a nervous flock of cranes.
wild garlic
Thursday August 04, 2016
The wild garlic has all gone to seed, heads bowed with the weight of their descendants. A tiny ichneumon patrols the porch, wings a-quiver.
Friday July 15, 2016
The continual, three-syllable chatter of goldfinches. Wild garlic stalks have begun to straighten and the heads to shed their white masks.
Friday July 08, 2016
The crowds of wild garlic in my yard have uncoiled their white heads and seem to peer in all directions like bewildered cranes.
Saturday August 08, 2015
A dragonfly with shimmering, banded wings and an electric blue abdomen lands on a garlic seed-head, falls still and nearly disappears.
Wednesday July 29, 2015
The feral garlic top-heads have split their skins, unveiling clusters of beady eyes. The sun’s a glowing smudge. It’s going to be hot.
Sunday June 28, 2015
Garlic heads in the yard are beginning to uncurl—curved arrows pointing in all directions. But the rain still follows its straight road.
Saturday February 07, 2015
A gray morning. I notice, silhouetted against the snow, how all the heads in each patch of wild garlic are bent in the same direction.
Friday February 07, 2014
Just two wild garlic heads remain in the yard, dangling on their stalks like sad, gray Christmas ornaments above the glittery white.
Saturday July 07, 2012
A fawn among the wild garlic: the white tops continue in the spots of its coat. Later, a hummingbird at the beebalm: matching red throats.
Friday July 08, 2011
In the yard, the horde of wild garlic heads have begun to rise from their private ruminations and aim their long beaks together at the sky.
Sunday February 27, 2011
Three stalks of garlic in the yard have kept their heads throughout this long winter, seasoning the snows. The distant fluting of geese.
Sunday July 11, 2010
On the garlic tops below the porch, the skins are peeling back, burst by the pressure of insurrectionary mobs with wild green hair.
Saturday June 19, 2010
The garlic in my yard has a conspiratorial air, heads coiled, beaks thrust in every direction. Nearby, a lone wild onion’s Medusa hair.