Bloom On The Dhobi Tree, Droid Shots, Washington, D.C., June 2014, photos © 2014 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Spring equinox
eclipsed by the dark
side of the moon
Spring arrived under a New Moon and Total Solar Eclipse fanfare, in spite of March with her gray skies and flurries. Snow has melted from the Twin Cities landscape, leaving behind a patchwork of late winter beige and timid green. Anxious for spring color, I revisited photographs from a June walk in the Enid A. Haupt Garden outside the Smithsonian Castle. It was the first time I had seen a Dhobi Tree and it was in full bloom.
The Dhobi Tree (Mussaenda frondosa) is pollinated by butterflies attracted by a modified leaf growing at the base of the flowers. The plant grows wild in India and is part of the Rubiaceae Family which also includes Coffee and Gardenias. I am grateful for urban green space, a refuge and remembrance that every city was once a wild place.
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-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, March 22nd, 2015
-Part of a yearly practice to write a short form piece of poetry in a Moleskine journal once a day for the next year. Related to post: haiku 4 (one a day) Meets renga 52
Filed under: 13 Moons, Haiku, Nature, On the Road, Place, Practice, Seasons, Travel Tagged: Dhobi Tree, Enid A. Haupt Garden, Mussaenda frondosa, promise of Spring, Smithsonian Gardens, spring equinox, The Castle, the practice of poetry, Washington D.C.
