Our bond was forged between two places;
The sky-found fables, familiar faces,
And back in our city the seasoned disgraces.
I envied your consort on the heath,
His stubble sharp as lamprey’s teeth,
He made a garter and a wreath
And toured the church where he would kneel
Before love’s faulted spinning wheel
Which trades between what’s right and real.
As younger lovers we shared seven rings,
Your leaf’s butter-wrapping annulled nettle stings,
We tamed the marshes and the lings.
You poured your songs into wandering missels,
You gave me a crown of Tyrian thistles
And peace within my Roman epistles.
But in the river there’s catfish and perch,
The river that throttles the crumbling church,
Where Love Lies Bleeding, under a birch.
“Molly,” she said, rather languidly, “just run out and get me a bunch of dock-leaves: the butter’s ready to pack up now.”
This quote from Adam Bede shows that butter was carried in dock leaves in early 19th century England, which I thought about when looking at dock leaves nearby, growing around nettles, as they do. As though nature can both sting and offer healing at the same time.
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Amaranthus Caudatus, or Love-Lies-Bleeding, was considered in Victorian flower symbology as representing hopeless love.
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