A Hangover of Summer Song

August 27, 2022

A Hangover of Summer Song

"There was a late autumn cricket,

And two smoldering mountain sunsets

Under the valley roads of her eyes

There was a late autumn cricket

A hangover of summer song,

Scraping a tune

Of the late night clocks of summer,

In the late winter night fireglow,

This in a circle of black velvet at her neck.

In pansy eyes a flash, a thin rim of white light a beach bonfire ten miles across the dunes, a speck of a fool star in night's half circle of velvet.

In the corner of the left arm a dimple, a mole, a forget-me-not, and it fluttered a hummingbird wing, a blur in the honey-red clover, in the honey-white buckwheat."

(Sandburg)

Is it Buckwheat season yet? Honestly it seems like it has been Buckwheat season for most of the year; I think maybe the plants don't bloom and dry all at the same time, so that it seems like the season goes on and on. Anyway, few plants provide quite the same visual clue to the time of year - if the hillsides are rust-colored it must the late August, September, October.

Buckwheat (Wilahkahl, to the Indigenous people of the area), as you may known, is an edible plant and if you have some growing in your yard you can pick and grind the flowers. The roots also have medicinal qualities. Don't take it all though, Buckwheat is a dependable favorite of bees and butterflies too, in fact more honey is buckwheat-based than any other. Which makes perfect sense considering how much there is out there, growing all around the upper "wild" half of the Heights / PET Loop.