Patches of dull sunlight brighten as the clouds thin. A distant whine of traffic is sweetened by goldfinch chatter in the treetops. Below the porch, wild garlics are beginning to raise their crane’s-bill heads.
wild garlic
Cool and humid. The crows are carrying on again, like one of those families who share their business with the entire Walmart. The top-heading garlic stalks in the yard have split their hoods to reveal what look like compound eyes.
Up for moonset and sunrise—both hidden by clouds. The dark yard, punctuated by the apostrophes of top-heading garlic, has a crow for a rooster.
Rain tapering off by eight. Even the fog looks green. Wild garlic plants in the yard are beginning to straighten, heads going up like herons trying to swallow large fish.
Fog lingering into mid-morning. Whatever the crows are up to, it involves a lot of begging sounds. The wild garlic heads are beginning to split.
Sun rising into clouds. The mob of wild garlic heads in the meadow are beginning to shed their white hoods.
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.
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.
The continual, three-syllable chatter of goldfinches. Wild garlic stalks have begun to straighten and the heads to shed their white masks.
The crowds of wild garlic in my yard have uncoiled their white heads and seem to peer in all directions like bewildered cranes.
A dragonfly with shimmering, banded wings and an electric blue abdomen lands on a garlic seed-head, falls still and nearly disappears.
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.
Garlic heads in the yard are beginning to uncurl—curved arrows pointing in all directions. But the rain still follows its straight road.
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.