Sweet Angelica,
An overwhelm of your leafy
ramifications, waxed verdure
affections for a wayward wind.
My eyes caught the emerald glint;
now they glisten green
in a poetic apotheosis.
Should I deem you guilty
that 'twas the devil's walking stick
that sired you,
as virid envelope,
so delicate that every leaflet
would blend to a fine herb repast.
So I brave your prickly defences
in my manner of white tailed deer
and nibble of your leafy poetry.
A half mouthed curse that you sting
but your arbour rose
where none grew and I thought
you bloomed especially for me.
Rhizomes spiralled for life,
and the taste of muddied rain.
Other wanderers tried pillage
those jejune early fronds and
you recoiled in thorny armament,
a conflicted poetry I read on you.
Look at you now ...
largest leaf than any other in a North wind,
towering panicles that draw
a chorus of winged angels, quills.
These be the battlements of love
that will shed for life, in beauty
for when Summer leaves, there'll be Fall,
then the long rest of seasons.
I was struck by the leafy beauty of the Angelica tree which I came across at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on the Virginia half of Assateague Island that we visited recently.
Read further at: davinasolomon.org/2021/06/15/for-angelica/
The trunk and petioles bear spines, a stem modification in defence from foragers, that makes it also quite deer resistant. The spines also gave it the common name of ‘devil’s walking stick’ or ‘prickly ash’.
Here below, is a botanical poem.
