{"id":1725,"date":"2025-09-17T11:26:59","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T15:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/new_staging\/?page_id=1725"},"modified":"2025-09-17T11:26:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T15:26:59","slug":"later-flowers-for-the-bees","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/?page_id=1725","title":{"rendered":"Later Flowers for the Bees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Later Flowers for the Bees<\/h1>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

I garden at the end of a one-block cul de sac. This area bordering the woods is classified on the municipal maps as vacant land. Yes, it\u2019s poetry. The gardens are anything but decorous, or planned. Strays are welcome. Wild volunteers turn out whimsical or handsome. Some alight of their own volition, or via bird droppings (the enormous blackberries!); other seeds I pocket on my trail hikes and plant when I get home. A tall sedge with seedheads large as three ears of wheat jammed together. A low-growing tuft of a sedge, with spindly stem and tiny-star seeds. The average sedge\u2014which I\u2019ve multiplied and transplanted so thickly that it composes two mini-lawns; they don\u2019t mind the tread of feet, and never need mowing.<\/p>\n

\"White<\/a>The fluffy seeds of White Snakeroot were once riders in my pockets. What is the name for darkest green? This is the color of snakeroot\u2019s leaves, and they are heart-shaped with a very tapering point. Creamy clusters of\u00a0 florets form large cottony flat-topped hats on the 3-foot mature plants. I encourage them, transplant them\u2014here, then there\u2014for years, but they never come to much. Suddenly, 2022 is a mast year for white snakeroot: a 50 \"White<\/a>foot long drift behind the dead-hedges in the newish sanctuary that my husband and I call Back East. I can no longer give snakeroot away to neighbors who see them everywhere already!<\/p>\n

Boneset is cousin to snakeroot. But boneset\u2019s umbel is even cottonier, and its leaves are lances, and perfoliate: it looks as though the stem is growing \"Boneset-bloom2-514422617\"<\/a>through<\/span> the leaf itself. Boneset \"Boneset<\/a>leaf magic, though, is the fact that there\u2019s not one but two leaves involved around the stem\u2014joined, and opposite each other. I love the late summer\/fall bloomers, and these two species are thoroughworts. Where did that<\/span> family of plants get its name?<\/p>\n

The plants are always teaching me. At the base of Glastonbury Tor in the Vale of Avalon, my mind was turned from growing vegetables to growing flowers. In the Chalice Well garden, I reached down through magenta blooms to soft as lambs-ears silver-grey basal leaves and wondered whatever could this creature be. The plant is now a mainstay on the land I cultivate. I can\u2019t tell you its name, for somewhere along the line a wrong name got recorded in the grooves of my brain.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I garden in the shade on rock
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 transplant mullein, trellis pokeweed
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The bulbs for this place
\nare a tall order<\/p>\n

The 9-page poem that holds those lines garnered compliments from editors but never a publication. Poets despite best effort may assume multiple magazine rejection means not good enough. But \u2018Among the Trees,\u2019 its title referencing Genesis 3:8, does reach print as the centerpiece of The Devil\u2019s Fools<\/a>, and Cynthia Hogue wows me, takes me by surprise, with her jacket comment highlighting this poem. My new book\u2019s manuscript was a finalist in 2001 for NPS andcetera; its assemblage and re-assemblage ever since resembles the bricolage of gardening around my house. Last spring, Codhill Press selected my manuscript as not finalist but winner.<\/p>\n

Now my husband will no longer have to keep the promise I extracted: to have Finalist carved on my tombstone. We think of poetry publishing as so scarce these days. But I\u2019ve just learned that Harcourt picked Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s first book from 800 manuscripts entered in a contest! With my mother\u2019s mother I descend from midwife and iron welder who shipped to Philadelphia from the hunger roads of counties Mayo and Roscommon. Persist, I say, fellow poets: if it\u2019s worth doing, it\u2019s worth overdoing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2014\u2014MG, 12 October 2022<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Later Flowers for the Bees I garden at the end of a one-block cul de sac. This area bordering the woods is classified on the municipal maps as vacant land. Yes, it\u2019s poetry. The gardens are anything but decorous, or planned. Strays are welcome. Wild volunteers turn out whimsical or handsome. Some alight of their own volition, or via bird … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-blank-4.php","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1725","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1725"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1728,"href":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1725\/revisions\/1728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}