It’s time to order your dahlia tubers and dream about warm summer days full of vivid colour. There’s plenty of choice, because they’re riding high in the plant fashion stakes, and deservedly so. After all, they flower from July until the first frost intervenes, and these days that can mean early November for many of us.
POETS SALON – 09/28/22 Hosted by Kathabela Wilson it’s so hot even the educated squirrels at Caltech do it splooting, maybe the birds and the bees do it ~ Kathabela (Splooting: a behavior that allows squirrels and others to cool off is more prevalent
FRIENDS gather of an evening to witness the once-in-nine-yearly flowering of an exotic cactus. While they’re waiting for this miraculous night bloom, they keep themselves entertained in time-honoured tradition of telling heroic tales and reciting epic poems. The last recitation is the Gurresange – a grand tragedy of illicit love and jealous fury and the transcendental powers of nature to resurrect the human spirit. It goes something like this. Back in 14th century Denmark, King Waldemar loves the beautiful maiden Tove and they meet for secret passionate trysts at the castle of Gurre. Queen Helwig poisons Tove in a jealous rage (the original ballad has her locked in a sauna, which seems a uniquely Scandinavian revenge) and Tove’s funeral is recounted in vivid verse by a wood dove. The grieving Waldemar curses God and is condemned to forever fly through the night skies, while Tove is splendidly transfigured through the glories of nature and, to top it all off, the poet himse