Look up.
Look at the butterflies.
See how they hang in the winter sun.
I sought them in Victoria Park
one sunny day recently,
thinking I'd find them in the totara or the English oaks
as I had in other years.
But this time I found the monarch butterflies
clustering in the boughs of the blue cedar:
some of them releasing from their group
to drift and float in the bright air.
During a spell of frost in the Secret Garden, my heart sings.
There is a smell of frozen grass and twig and earth that belongs to this garden. I only know that on a frosty morning, when the smell takes me back to childhood mornings of discovery, and I marvel that there is this continuity of place in my life.
A frosty morning heralds sunshine and blue skies
encouraging star magnolias in street plantings, to unfurl their radiance...
Which brings me back to the butterflies.
Blue Atlas cedar Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca'
Star magnolia Magnolia stellata
2 comments:
Aren't they gorgeous? They used to cluster in a huge tree in Woodham Park, but I haven't seen them there for ages in such numbers! Lovely photos.
Gorgeous indeed. I have an outing to Woodham Park in mind - a field trip with friends or a picnic maybe - in search of an Osage Orange tree. I shall add Monarch butterfly spotting to the visit. It really is a jewel in the city's crown, that park, isn't it?
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