Tuesday, February 19, 2008

A Flower for Your Thoughts

The jonquil and the paperwhite are in the genus Narcissus.

Jonquille
or junquillo share the Latin root word for reed, iuncus.

For the Chinese, the jonquil is a good luck symbol.

According to the Flowerbulb Research Program at Cornell University, to stunt the growth of tall, top-heavy paperwhites use a dilute alcohol solution in watering:

To convert your booze to 5% alcohol, just divide the percentage alcohol by 5 and then subtract 1. That will tell you how many parts water to mix with your 1 part alcohol.

Narcissus, Photographer by Erica Jong

"...a frozen memory, like any photo,
where nothing is missing, not even,
and especially, nothingness..."
-- Julio Cortázar, "Blow Up"

Mirror-mad,
he photographed reflections:
sunstorms in puddles,
cities in canals,

double portraits framed
in sunglasses,
the fat phantoms who dance
on the flanks of cars.

Nothing caught his eye
unless it bent
or glistered
over something else.

He trapped clouds in bottles
the way kids
trap grasshoppers.
Then one misty day

he was stopped
by the windshield.
Behind him,
an avenue of trees,

before him,
the mirror of that scene.
He seemed to enter
what, in fact, he left.




4 comments:

Σφιγξ said...

This is a generalization ascribed to the Victorians--the jonquil symbolizes affection returned?

Σφιγξ said...

https://books.google.com/books?id=soo5AgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT182&dq=La%20Ghirlandata%20larkspur&pg=PT182#v=onepage&q=La%20Ghirlandata%20larkspur&f=false

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228544127_Larkspur_poisoning_toxicology_and_alkaloid_structure-activity_relationships_1

Σφιγξ said...

The man found over the guardrail was north bound and flipped into the south lane.

Σφιγξ said...

I have a Page-a-Day calendar, and I dreaded to see the painting with March 30-31st because a real strain of antisemitism runs through the the weekend. One that I never realized.

This was the painting. I like it a lot with the horror vacui. I have thought about Joan Thewsey's work all weekend.


https://www.meisterdrucke.us/fine-art-prints/Joan-Thewsey/253503/Daffodils,-Antique-Jugs,-Plates,-Textiles-and-Lace,-2012-.html