Summertime Blues

No,not the Eddie Cochran song. Our lilac bush has belatedly(?) produced some bluish-purple flowers. The feral lilacs up the road, and most of the others in our neck of the woods, blossomed back in May and June. We're not sure what's going on with ours. Is it a cultivar with a later in the Summer flower pattern?

spotted horsemint

Photo by J. Harrington

We've also noticed the growth of several large patches of spotted horsemint (Monarda punctata) in the fields. According to one of our field guides, it's a favorite nectar source of the karner blue butterfly, an endangered species. A 1990 survey failed to confirm the butterfly's presence in Chisago county but did note the presence of a large population of lupine (needed flower for garner blues) in Wild River state park and noted the butterfly's existence across the St.Croix River in Wisconsin. We've seen some small blue butterflies around here this Summer and last, but haven't been able to confirm an identification.

Buckthorn pulling season has started again, although it's too warm to do much at a time. We're also pulling weeds since we're contemplating starting a butterfly garden behind the house, but need to find shade tolerant plants. Despite a West facing location, some oaks to the South shade until late in the day the location we've in mind.

Finally, for today, we think we've found another active pocket gopher location so we will once again set some traps, being ever mindful of Samuel Beckett's observation, "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

The Blue

By Camille T. Dungy

One will live to see the Caterpillar rut everything

they walk on—seacliff buckwheat cleared, relentless

ice plant to replace it, the wild fields bisected

by the scenic highway, canyons covered with cul-de-sacs,

gas stations, comfortable homes, the whole habitat

along this coastal stretch endangered, everything,

everyone, everywhere in it danger as well—

but now they're logging the one stilling hawk

Smith sights, the conspiring grasses' shh shhhh ssh,

the coreopsis Mattoni's boot barely spares,

and, netted, a solitary blue butterfly. Smith

ahead of him chasing the stream, Mattoni wonders

if he plans to swim again. Just like that

the spell breaks. It's years later, Mattoni lecturing

on his struggling butterfly. How fragile.  

           •

If his daughter spooled out the fabric

she's chosen for her wedding gown,

raw taffeta, burled, a bright hued tan,

perhaps Mattoni would remember

how those dunes looked from a distance,

the fabric, balanced between her arms,

making valleys in the valley, the fan

above her mimicking the breeze.

He and his friend loved everything

softly undulating under the coyest wind,

and the rough truth as they walked

through the land's scratch and scrabble

and no one was there, then, besides Mattoni

and his friend, walking along Dolan's Creek,

in that part of California they hated

to share. The ocean, a mile or so off,

anything but passive so that even there,

in the canyon, they sometimes heard it smack

and pull well-braced rocks. The breeze,

basic: salty, bitter, sour, sweet. Smith trying

to identify the scent, tearing leaves

of manzanita, yelling: "This is it. Here! This is it!"

his hand to his nose, his eyes, having finally seen

the source of his pleasure, alive.

               •

In the lab, after the accident, he remembered it,

the butterfly. How good a swimmer Smith had been,

how rough the currents there at Half Moon Bay, his friend

alone with reel and rod—Mattoni back at school

early that year, his summer finished too soon—

then all of them together in the sneaker wave,

and before that the ridge, congregations of pinking

blossoms, and one of them bowing, scaring up the living,

the frail and flighty beast too beautiful

to never be pinned, those nights Mattoni worked

without his friend, he remembered too.

He called the butterfly Smith's Blue.

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