Lotus (September)

Anglesea Baptist Op Shop expands with each visit. ‘Location Location Location’ as travellers on the Great Ocean Road drop-off some olde stuffe (buckled cutlery, slightly frayed clothing, fashion-victim CDs) on the way through. This September there’s a whole new room just for books. I gravitate, as usual, toward cookbooks, art, Literature, spirituality. The shelf above spirituality holds tall books, like ‘Paper Blossoms : A Book of Beautiful Bouquets for the Table.’ (San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 2010). Five pop-up pages, including a lotus water garden: blue hard cardboard pond, green lifting lilypads, wings-up dragonfly, two flowers of spiritual awakening. Sold: $4.  

Fuchsia (September)

‘Fuchsia Excorticata’ is a native New Zealand tree. Charles Brasch’s poem of that name reveals his Italophile inclinations, where “the terracotta bark, / Loose-papered, glows like sunburnt skin”. He calls what Maori names kotukutuku “Warm Etruscan”. Poets go to contrary lengths, as when Brasch claims “Long ago the fuchsias forgot birds, seasons, weather,” when we know plant memory thrives on these for survival. These fuchsias are “begotten under midnight and no moon” and are “with black dew nightly replenished”, which means something if you read Exodus. Like Brasch (my September reading) himself they “turned from all fellowship outside the tribe.”

Cherry (September)

Hanami is in September in south-eastern Australia. Trees, isolated in back gardens or in rough rows making orchards in the hills, suddenly transform with white and pink cherry blossom. Hanami is unknown in Australia, viewings in which half the population organise picnics under cherry trees, viewings that youths sometimes turn into riotous parties. Nor do we hear sakura-zensen, cherry blossom forecasts that accompany the weather report. Breakfast show announcers, who laugh at their own jokes, do not rivet our attention with updates about cherry blossom. Half the population couldn’t identify a cherry tree, if asked, either before or after blossoming.

Wildflower (September)

Wye River Field Guide. Month: September. Pink Correa planted by the shire around the bus stop. At the beach rail, white Callistemon, not sure of its full Latin, English, or Aboriginal. Spike Rush riverside, true to form with rushy stem and spiky florets. Some kind of Wax-lip Orchid with bluey streaks near the caravan park entrance. Yellow Rice Flower at edges of gravel carpark and metal road guards. A sort of light purple pea, maybe Hovea, and who knows what mix of weeds and wildflowers in Boulevarde ditches. Under decking and amidst undergrowth beside the river, overabundance of Wandering Jew.

Aster (September)

Found a yellowed ‘Home at Grasmere’ (Penguin, 1978). Dorothy writes Friday September 24^th 1802, “We dressed ourselves immediately and got tea – the garden looked gay with asters and sweet pea.” Our beach house is gay, in the Wordsworthian sense, colourful couches, tumbles of books, tea on the boil, &c. Ditto the garden, what with trees of gold banksias, flowering gums popping their corks, wax Bendigoing about, &c. Sometimes a relief Dorothy had a gay garden, what with William off on long walks, inspired by dismal mountains, and Coleridge calling over, talking non-stop theory by the fireplace into the small hours.

Waxflower (September)

Small white flowers, one cluster. Three together deck leaf axils. Life the living stem musters. Nothing the big bang excels. Unpotted, planted six years ago. Patterns on hillsides seed instils. Time, that is fast, slow. Clouds leave leaves leave leaves. Holidayers February September come, go. Winter how the wood weaves. Hard dark, clear secret days. To earth and air cleaves. Surf distant thunder rolling greys. Scrubwrens, firetails peck and peek. Wye is its springtime phase. Rainfall is a million creeks. One day, overnight, galaxies appear. White buds, light flesh, speak. Entering the vastness without fear. Pushing the edges without fluster.

Protea (September)

The ocean, horizon-blue, green at the reef, white against it. Ocean, that brought wobbly pods from ancient Africa. They speckled and spread over centuries, September through September, the continent’s western coastlines: precious facts. Their tough terms and learnt leaves raised cups of furry fires. They were here to stay. Those we see here were imports, brought east by nurserymen’s ambitions. They make solitary companions, take the heat, wait for the cool change. The sun beat down on ancient Australia, as it beats this day of days on Wye River. Sun will put these fires out, turn their flesh factual brown.

Banksia (September)

Every eye this September gazes upon a screen: opaque flatglass infotainment. How may they see the banksias? Sea rain loosens tubular flowers, their wiry styles, top spikes. Sunshine softens the bristles, improves their yellow auras, brightens. Bees dawdle awhile from aisle to fibrous aisle. The understated wattlebird weighs each branch as it picks a favourite cone. Sterile existence before the screen, all ‘head stuff’. Time to step outdoors, visit the coast. There we copy essays out longhand with a ballpoint, ready to transfer to our blogs. Click of mouse and every eye is irradiated with something new, forgetful of banksias.

Tulip (September)

Septembre September Septiembre Settembre 2015 Iznik Calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. ‘Plat aux trois tulipes et jacinthes’, the tulips spotted burnt red, hyacinths little bluebells. (Detail, vers 1570) it says in brackets, a good year for the Ottomans, they started the conquest of Cyprus. We’ve never heard the end of it, tulips and hyacinths. So many ways of describing the globe, too. So many ways of saying God without saying God. Iznik, ancient Nicaea, serves evidence. The calendar is ‘Printed in Europe, in accordance with environmental standards and on paper from sustainably managed forests.’ What does it mean, ‘sustainably’?

Crocus (September)

Picture wall at ‘Lamppost Nineteen, Cloudland’, September 2015. 24 colour pencil drawings of canoes made by B. and P. at Romano’s in Ivanhoe, 25th July 2008. Abstract music notation print by Jiri Tibor Novak, PF 2013. Fitzgibbon Street Parkville backyard circa 1983 in oils by Elizabeth Wade. Postcard from Max Richards of Rita Angus’s ‘Goddess of Mercy’ holding a yellow and red crocus, with halo of willow roots (Christchurch Art Gallery). Cornell-type box c/- B. lined with a map of Rome and The Book Depository bookmark promoting ‘The Walking Dead’ zombie books striding diagonally from Forum to Piazza Navona. Etc.

Pansy (September)

It’s years since I read any Lawrence, except for the poetry. One collection is called ‘Pansies’ (1929), an aural joke on the French word Pensées. Our first thought though is analogous. How is a pansy a thought? Are thoughts actually black in the centre, with the distinctive colour of the thought around the edges, hi-vis yellow, platonic pink, mood indigo? Rather than made of light, their centre is darkness? I’ve no idea. Is the home of thoughts pitch black? Or is there soft light inside, like the marble-walled Beinecke Library at Yale? In September as leaves fall? I don’t know.

Rosemary (September)

That’s for remembrance. Remembrance of what? Out-of-fashion books of hours? Mary’s cloak, legend says she threw over the bush on flight into Egypt, turning its petals blue? These aren’t flowers of romance, nor will Ophelia ever enter a nunnery. She’s cast aside her florilegiums. What’s September? She has only this reality: deep inside the patterns of petals is comfort. Her grief, turned madness, gazes child-like at their miniature universes. What does she remember? The author doesn’t tell us, much. He hands us posies of psychology, sends us down a brook of words. We look back at the crisis inside ourselves.

Jonquil (September)

City buses power down Albert Street. Bicyclists veer single-mindedly anywhere. The big 3am storm washed clean Gisborne Street, sticks and blossoms flooded against walls. At the wayside cross double jonquils have fallen everywhere. Time to consider the mess, only takes a minute. Coin-leaved acacia and pink Geraldton wax we reposition in a vase. Jonquils go back in a halved fruit juice bottle. Jam jars of rainwater await fresh offerings. Tidying done, quick glance at the figure: who is the king of glory? Then on our way. Bureaucrats bustle southwards, analysing September’s leadership spill. Wind in tall trees promises more rain.