Sweet Song

how sweet should he sing?
what lyrics would fill his tune?
little hummingbird

Coo -- Coo

lonely song
of the waning day
mourning dove

the peering

snow glows all quiet
like the peering of a deer
in the darkish night

Nature Poetry Worth Remembering

The bright moon lights the path
through the gray woods
From the unlit depths of the hollow
comes the soft sound of broken water
A faint brightness
or is it a low cloud
within the eastern sky
The earth is hushed

Harlan Hubbard
from his journal entry for February 2, 1953

The View Through My Railing

snow stacked up neatly
icicles hung in a row
Winter brings order

On My Deck

ice is all abloom
on dead chrysanthemum stalks
Winter is reborn

About 7:59 AM

Christmas Eve in the Sky

The fall of Winter

frozen flecks of white
on fallen color swatches
autumnal snowfall

It's a Boy!

I've been raising 2 black swallowtail caterpillars on a diet of queen anne's lace. The first one crawled out of his chrysalis this morning. He's a beautiful male adult black swallowtail!

Waxing and Waning

dropping down into
waning colors of sunset
waxing crescent moon

The Shadow's Crow

the crow followed his shadow everywhere
and when his shadow disappeared
the crow sat down and rested

My Lady's Washbowl

Today I read Hal Borland's essay about bouncing bet, which he mentions was prolific on this day of the year as he wrote. The article brought to mind a skit I've seen explaining the confusion of multiple names that can plague a naturalist. Saponaria officinalis, soapwort and fuller's herb also made the top 4 in the acted-out story. But I was intriqued as I read that the habit of women to wash their hair (or intimate clothing) with the herb inspired another name: my lady's washbowl.

Being unable to resist, I set about to find as many more names for the plant as I could. Here's what I found (just including names in English):

boston pink
bouncing bess
bruisewort
buryt ?
chimney pink (belongs to pink/carnation family)
crowsoap
dog's cloves (scent said to remind of cloves)
flop-top
goodbye summer
hedge pink
lady-by-the-gate (or lady-by-the-garden-gate)
latherwort
London pride (for the ability of the scented blooms to mask the stench of London's gutters)
mock-gilliflower
monthly pink
old maid's pink
ragged sailor
saponary
scourweed
scourwort
sheepweed (referencing cleaning wool, as in fuller's herb)
soapberry
soaproot
soapweed
soapwort gentian
sweet betty
wild sweet william
wood's phlox
world's wonder

Can you add more names to the list, or find explanations for any of the names?