A Childless Plant Lady Blog

The death of mayapples isn’t really death. They turn chartreuse, speckled, yellow, fall over, and brown, joining the autumn leaves to become the woodland carpet.

Beneath, where you can’t see, a rhizome holds all the energy captured in the fleeting months of spring.

I came too late hoping for any remaining fruit, as if the box turtles, deer, or squirrels would save me one.

Instead I bear witness to this massive wake. A last glimpse before they retire, giving space for ferns and budding magnolias. I keep walking, through these woods now green, and a pileated woodpecker flies across the trail.

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost

Heavy winds brought my neighbor’s tree across the fence into my yard, knocking down a bird house and scattering limbs everywhere. The tree had been dead for a long time which is why it came down so easily and barely damaged the fence. I see more luck than poetry.

It’s December, so time for rest and reflection. This year has been insane and so full of unexpected happenings. A fallen tree seems so minor.

Time for rest