of wings and petals
Jun. 8th, 2019 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliA warbler darts by me so fast I get the impression solely of a brown body with a red belly. And am thinking that it can't possibly be a European robin. . . . It's later when I see the bird about and its red head. It's a finch. What kind, exactly, I can not tell but a house finch is certainly possible.
I go to stake the iris blossoms before they bloom, because the first time it rains after, the stalks break. And I notice one set of buds is showing color for the first time. The next day, it is in full bloom.
A finch is perched on the tree. Its wings and breast are clear; the first a drab, drab brown, the second a red so bright as to look fluorescent.
The grackle has a certain fuzziness that speaks of fledglinghood, but its feathers are black on its back and its belly a strong blue that is clearly arising not from pigment but from iridescence. (Even when it's all blue. There's rubescence for turning red, but caerulescence for turning blue is not a thing.)
An adult grackle sits on the ground, all its wing and back blue from the iridescence.
The grass is all starred with daisies -- the yellow center not visible from the side, so it's all flecks of white.
All about the neighborhood the irises bloom, earlier or later. One southerly patch of reddish-brown irises was among the first, when even my earliest iris was just putting up stalks.
My fourth iris had not even put out a flower stalk when the other three had, the yellow out front, the magnificent fiery orange one by the side, and the small purple one -- I was telling myself I would have to root it up if it didn't, but maybe it was late -- and lo and behold it was. Overnight a stalk went up, because I was certianly looking yesterday. And other flowers so swiftly I didn't pick out the buds: sunrose in the flat, flaming orange flowers, and blue eyed grass with its violet trumpets
Two birds land on the grass. One is clearly a robin. The other, the same size and shape albeit somewhat more rotund, is a slightly lighter brown, and its belly is a brown both reddish and flecked -- a fledgling, perhaps.
An early rose bush -- every time I walk along the walkway, the air smells so sweetly even before I see the pink petals.
So many of the trees have dead branches. One has shelf fungus, and an hole where I've seen a woodpecker going in, when it has living branches elsewhere. One day I walk by, and eye the hole, and abruptly the brown background shifts as the woodpecker looking out moves.
A great stand of yellow iris, blooming wild on the bank of a pond.
Bluets like little blue stars throughout the lawn.
Where once daisies starred the green, now the buttercups have blossomed all about, more numerous than the daisies, so that there is a sea of yellow below the white.
On a pond with a vast garden of irises -- dark purple, mostly, with a few paler ones, there is a completely black waterfowl, with a neck far too long to be a duck. A cormorant, perhaps?
The rose garden has only the early roses -- single roses on climbing vines, both a vivid pink and a delicate one. Bushes with snow white blooms where the petals are even white as they fall. A bush with single roses in intense red. And one gate to the garden utterly engulfed in double yellow roses. And wherever you went, a stray breeze might engulf you in sweetness.
The flax, brilliantly sky blue, nods in the breeze against the background of grass, and looks like a fairy flower.
An iris stand stood in buds -- buds that looked perfectly black for many a day, only lately acquiring just a reddish tinge to the edges -- when they finally bloomed into russet brown blossoms. Very late -- unlike the other russet brown stand, which is an early one.
Eyes over the curb. A cat crouching at the corner of the parking lot is so small that only the green eyes and the top of the black head are visible.
Skeins of geese flying across the sky, honking. In the middle of June. One suspects a journey from one body of water to another, but it looked very migratory.
The wild roses all joined together. In the odd, wooded corners and along the banks of the stream, they bloom whitely.
Bands of clouds against the sky -- the clouds peach like in orange and pink, the sky behind a vivid sky blue -- and it clashes.
I go to stake the iris blossoms before they bloom, because the first time it rains after, the stalks break. And I notice one set of buds is showing color for the first time. The next day, it is in full bloom.
A finch is perched on the tree. Its wings and breast are clear; the first a drab, drab brown, the second a red so bright as to look fluorescent.
The grackle has a certain fuzziness that speaks of fledglinghood, but its feathers are black on its back and its belly a strong blue that is clearly arising not from pigment but from iridescence. (Even when it's all blue. There's rubescence for turning red, but caerulescence for turning blue is not a thing.)
An adult grackle sits on the ground, all its wing and back blue from the iridescence.
The grass is all starred with daisies -- the yellow center not visible from the side, so it's all flecks of white.
All about the neighborhood the irises bloom, earlier or later. One southerly patch of reddish-brown irises was among the first, when even my earliest iris was just putting up stalks.
My fourth iris had not even put out a flower stalk when the other three had, the yellow out front, the magnificent fiery orange one by the side, and the small purple one -- I was telling myself I would have to root it up if it didn't, but maybe it was late -- and lo and behold it was. Overnight a stalk went up, because I was certianly looking yesterday. And other flowers so swiftly I didn't pick out the buds: sunrose in the flat, flaming orange flowers, and blue eyed grass with its violet trumpets
Two birds land on the grass. One is clearly a robin. The other, the same size and shape albeit somewhat more rotund, is a slightly lighter brown, and its belly is a brown both reddish and flecked -- a fledgling, perhaps.
An early rose bush -- every time I walk along the walkway, the air smells so sweetly even before I see the pink petals.
So many of the trees have dead branches. One has shelf fungus, and an hole where I've seen a woodpecker going in, when it has living branches elsewhere. One day I walk by, and eye the hole, and abruptly the brown background shifts as the woodpecker looking out moves.
A great stand of yellow iris, blooming wild on the bank of a pond.
Bluets like little blue stars throughout the lawn.
Where once daisies starred the green, now the buttercups have blossomed all about, more numerous than the daisies, so that there is a sea of yellow below the white.
On a pond with a vast garden of irises -- dark purple, mostly, with a few paler ones, there is a completely black waterfowl, with a neck far too long to be a duck. A cormorant, perhaps?
The rose garden has only the early roses -- single roses on climbing vines, both a vivid pink and a delicate one. Bushes with snow white blooms where the petals are even white as they fall. A bush with single roses in intense red. And one gate to the garden utterly engulfed in double yellow roses. And wherever you went, a stray breeze might engulf you in sweetness.
The flax, brilliantly sky blue, nods in the breeze against the background of grass, and looks like a fairy flower.
An iris stand stood in buds -- buds that looked perfectly black for many a day, only lately acquiring just a reddish tinge to the edges -- when they finally bloomed into russet brown blossoms. Very late -- unlike the other russet brown stand, which is an early one.
Eyes over the curb. A cat crouching at the corner of the parking lot is so small that only the green eyes and the top of the black head are visible.
Skeins of geese flying across the sky, honking. In the middle of June. One suspects a journey from one body of water to another, but it looked very migratory.
The wild roses all joined together. In the odd, wooded corners and along the banks of the stream, they bloom whitely.
Bands of clouds against the sky -- the clouds peach like in orange and pink, the sky behind a vivid sky blue -- and it clashes.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-08 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-09 01:16 am (UTC)For the ultimate authority, there is of course An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton.