Posts Tagged ‘Hawthorn’
autumn red
We visited our camp yesterday and found a bush of hawthorn, sharp with thorns and red with berries. On the way home, we saw mountain ash, laden with clusters of red berries. And in our driveway are red rose hips and the dark red of the fruit in our crab apple tree. There is a drab side to the fall months, but these bits of colour make me happy.
~
~
~
~
All my best,
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
haws and sharps
As we trim our roads at our cabin, we sometimes get into arguments over what shrubs should stay and what should go. Most decisions are easy: mountain birch and willow are numerous on the property and will grow back; oak and maple are always kept because of their beauty and relative scarcity; alders disappear without the slightest consideration. However, whether to keep the hawthorn (Cretaegus) or let it grow, always takes some wrangling.
~
~
The Hawthorn is a woody shrub or bush with sharp thorns, growing in thickets and along rivers, lakes and coastal areas. Hawthorn is also called Red Haw. The red, fleshy fruit is used to make tea, jelly or jam.
~
~
I think the shrub should be kept just for its beauty. Who could resist those bright red haws?
~
~
My husband wants it gone. The thorns are long and sharp enough to pierce an ATV tire or scratch a truck.
~
~
Who wins the argument? Beauty always prevails. Even those thorns have their own, terrible, loveliness.
~
risk
Hawthorn (Cretaegus spp.)
~
each fall, the hawthorn bleeds
with berries, impales
with thorns
~
berries are difficult to gather
easier to flood, with red
imagination
~
to strip the bush of every drop
Cretaegus draws
so choose –
~
ignore the feast, or risk
a bleed to pick a berry
collude with birds
~
see how waxwings hover
twig to twig, manoeuvre
in the thorns
~
haws, of course, not wasted –
what red the thrushes leave
will rot
~
nourish another season
~
~
poem from within easy reach (Chapel Street Editions, 2016) –
one poem of many to celebrate the edible wild …
to order a copy of the book, contact Chapel Street Editions
~
All my best,
Jane
red berries red
Red Berries Red
Jane Tims
2011
~~
~~
Hawthorn
(Crataegus)
~
between ruby glass
and hard wood floor
a slide of light and three
~
extinguished candles
smoke lifts from smoulder
each mote a particle
~
of spectral light, mosaic
shard, image
reassembled in three
~
dimensions
shepherd, hawthorn
pitiful lamb
~~
~~
Canadian Holly
(Ilex verticillata (L.) Gray)
~
drab November
and lexicon
expires
umber leaves
grey verticals
dull stubble
~
winterberries
astound the wetland
red ink on page
words explode
from exile
~
fever flush and holly
above December snow
icicles vermillion
~~
~~
© Jane Tims, 2011
'red berries' Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis L.)
nichepoetryandprose 