Hyacinthodes Nonscripta: British Bluebells

Hyacinthodes Nonscripta: British Bluebells

Not seeds, but bulbs
Masquerading as onions
Impersonating garlic
Spherical sacks of promise
Foreshadowed vows,
Wrapped in
Filmy tissue paper white
Or round and slick as
Scrubbed new potatoes
This sweet, sleeping secret

After a winter of grey, they stir,
Tickled awake by the touch of water
When it swells the rushing rivers and
Gurgles down the dells . . .
When earth ripens moist and marshy
And the wind smells quick and green . . .
They shudder and stir in their darkened beds
Ancient as the standing bluestone circles
Young as the new, wet sky
They stretch, unroll, yearn upwards
In a slow, spring-seeking dance

They come and cloak the hillsides
Blanket the hollows
Deck the tumbling rills
Soft, nodding, velvet bells
Barely clinging to the earth
Gifting the eye an impossible blue
Filling the world with wonder

On the summit of spring they tremble
Shivering crest of a sapphire sea,
A brief, bright breath of joy before . . .
They fold into their own profusion
Bow back beneath abundant birth
Suddenly sunk in a veil of green
They curve and curl, cycling back
To spheres and circles . . .
Beginnings . . .
Bulbs

And there they wait . . .
Round and slick as
New potatoes
These sweet, sleeping
Secret bells

Endurance . . .
Eternity . . .

And a heart-stopping
memory of
Blue



© Edwina Peterson Cross
(For Vi)

Bethanna in the Bluebells