Category Archives: mythology

Pando

17 Thursday Jun 2021

Posted by in Environment, mythology, Nature, Poetry

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File:FallPando02.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons. USA Forest and Agriculture Department

 

 

Christ died on an aspen cross, woodmen thought.

Maybe that’s why, on slight provocation,

I quake and all my cordate leaves shiver,

so that I am known as ‘The Trembling Giant,’

aka Populus tremuloides.

Before men walked out of Africa and

when glaciers were scouring the planet,

I, Pando, was like a subterranean god –

not Pluto, but Pando, meaning ‘I spread.’

After flames have incinerated me,

my dormant rhizome will regenerate,

like resurgence of an old religion.

In times of trial, I just go underground;

in ideal circumstances, I can host

bryophytes; nurture lepidoptera.

I have the root of the matter in me,

but I share my vulnerability

with my multiple ramets – all my clones.

I haven’t flowered for ten thousand years,

in spite of a rigorous self-pruning.

See where black scars mutilate my white bark.

Invasive lodge pole pine may steal my light

and pocket gophers gnaw my root system,

but I sprout from this volcanic soil.

What I lack in diversity,

I’ll exchange for durability, for

we suckers just plan to stay together,

even when a highway runs right through us.

Master of the art of adaptation,

I will survive when all else is ashen.

 

Unicorn

21 Friday May 2021

Posted by in Animals, art, gardens, Humour, mythology, Personal, Photography, Psychology, Sculpture, Supernatural

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Went to a sculpture exhibition this week where some exhibits were tens of

thousands of pounds.

At the end, I wandered into the field where we had parked and saw a table

with plants, which I mistakenly thought might be for sale.

In the bushes beside the table was this little magical object- plastic- attached to

a fir branch which might have been part of an old discarded Xmas tree.

I actually had as much pleasure in serendipitously discovering and

photographing this small talisman, worth about 5p!

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Grass of Parnassus

18 Friday Sep 2020

Posted by in Environment, History, mythology, Nature, Nostalgia, Poetry, Religion, Writing

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File:DwNorthernGrassofParnassus.jpg
Photo by Dwindrim at enwikipedia 2004

You, the favourite bloom of St Moluag

(he who pipped Columba to Lismore’s shore)

who ranged Rosemarkie’s red promontory,

seeking his personal white martyrdom.

At your petals’ tip is a nectar drip:

a signal for the reapers to begin.

Once, you colonised Apollo’s fair lands,

but made fresh conquest from Elysium,

establishing yourself in this terrain;

settling in the Land of Picts, as Bog Star:

light in the darkness of Dalriada.

Your chalice-shaped flowers, honey-fragrant,

scent craggy coastlines, where soft haar descends.

You feistily commune with sharp night frosts.

Your subtle venation reminded saints

of Christ’s stripes, or of their green island home;

Moluag  preferred your stamens

to the crowns of all those cremated kings

whose smoke ascended from The Hill of Fire.

Sun of Lismore in Alba; Shining One:

he was determined to take root, like you.

You were transplanted; he was translated.

You were pervasive as that white hot faith.

Until today, I’d never heard of you,

but now I seem to see you everywhere.