Seek Giacometti’s “The Palace at 4 a.m.” Go back two hours. See towers and curtain walls of matchsticks, marble, marbles, light, cloud at stasis. Walk in. The beggar queen is dreaming on her throne of words… You have arrived at the web home of Marly Youmans, maker of novels, poems, and stories, as well as the occasional fantasy. D. G. Myers: "A writer who has more resolutely stood her ground against the tide of literary fashion would be difficult to name."
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SAFARI seems to no longer work
Friday, July 08, 2011
Spring snow
14 comments:
Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.
These are so beautiful Marly. Saw some the other week-end in Yorkshire I think - is Dogwood the same as Cornus? The flowers remind me of hydrageas.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is the genus. The southeastern U. S. has lots of native species.
ReplyDeleteI just looked up the name, and Wiki says:
The name "dog-tree" entered the English vocabulary by 1548, and had been further transformed to "dogwood" by 1614. Once the name dogwood was affixed to this kind of tree, it soon acquired a secondary name as the Hound's Tree, while the fruits came to be known as dogberries or houndberries (the latter a name also for the berries of black nightshade, alluding to Hecate's hounds). Another theory advances the view that "dogwood" was derived from the Old English dagwood, from the use of the slender stems of its very hard wood for making 'dags' (daggers, skewers, and arrows).[2][3]
Another, earlier name of the dogwood in English is the whipple-tree. Geoffrey Chaucer uses "whippletree" in The Canterbury Tales ("The Knight's Tale", verse 2065) to refer to the dogwood. A whippletree is an element of the traction of a horse-drawn cart, linking the drawpole of the cart to the harnesses of the horses in file; these items still bear the name of the tree from which they are commonly carved.
Gorgeous! British Columbia's provincial flower is the dogwood. I love the contrast of the native dogwoods against the dark conifers in the woods. A lot of gardens here have many nursery varieties, also in pinks.
ReplyDeleteLovely, Marly.
ReplyDeletefyi: this one is Cornus kousa. They flourished wonderfully--as many woodies have--with the copious snow and rainfall of the last 2 years.
Our native dogwood is Cornus florida(florida=flowering).
zephyr,
ReplyDeleteI thought it was Cornus kousa but then remembered my mother had dug up the tree, so I thought I must be wrong. But now I remember that we had a ring of five Cornus kousa at the prior house, and I believe she must have had the nursery transplant one...
marja-leena,
ReplyDeleteYes, I like that too--the white against the firs. And in sparse years the flowers look ethereal and floating the way.
Pink has become rather popular for yards and gardens here as well, but I love seeing them on the mountains, wild and sometimes scraggly.
those blossoms are stunning, so beautiful!
ReplyDeleteIt's also true that when you have lived far from home, then when you come back home, you miss things from the other place you lived. (I spent two years in Malawi)
I'm afraid that I am quite capable of missing strange and wonderful fruits that I ate in Thailand and Cambodia, and that was only two weeks! We are nostalgic, we humans.
ReplyDeleteThey are incredibly lovely. No wonder they have made an impression on you! I wasn't even there, and they also impress me with longing. Of course, I remember the trees and honeysuckle at Hollins in the spring and summer, and that's part of what these pictures trigger in me.
ReplyDeleteI think some of your pictures didn't post though. There are blank spaces there.
Robbi,
ReplyDeleteI checked it on two computers--works here. But it is a little more demanding that the usual because I made some of them a bit larger. Maybe those are the ones that aren't showing for you...
All summer and fall the dogberries will be falling. They are a beautiful red, and when stepped-on, produce an orange sap. Mess!
It is the big pics that didn't show on my computer.
ReplyDeleteSome of the prettiest trees are also the messiest. I remember when I was little, there was the most beautiful mimosa tree growing outside my best friend's house. Her parents used to complain that it was terribly messy, but I loved those sweet smelling fireworks, the pink asterisks that grew on that tree.
Just had a conversation on fb about whether mimosas are trash trees or not. They are not strong, and they are messy, but children always love them. Lovely pink puffs tipped with gold...
ReplyDeleteWe have an old dogwood tree in our garden that is now held up by gnarled wisteria and a grape vine. It was the only way to keep this tree going! But flower it does, every year : )
ReplyDeleteIn the front, Lynn planted the kind that has dogberries, and local children LOVE to squash those things!
I like the mess : )
These are very nice photos, Marly!
(Man.... I do miss the English countryside!)
Hey there, Mr. Tree--
ReplyDeleteI can imagine children having wild interplanetary battles, flinging dogberries about the yard (of course, now you have runaway concrete mixers for alien tanks!) And stomping dogberries must be satisfying for little people.
Maybe I need a wisteria crutch for my big birch growing out of a high apple stump. The stump is starting to decay and the tree to lean. Toward the house, of course!