Susie David writes.
The Warren today is floriferous. Floriferous, meaning many-flowered says Megan. None of us can say it. How to spell it? Floriferrous? — A suffix slightly prone (prone) to rust?
On this spit of land jutting out to sea (see) with its gazers trampling the overlooked underfoot and its wind and animal grazers, the Evening Primrose has adapted by spreading along, lying (lying) close to the ground. Survival tactics. Sniper flowers. Bees that visit them are generally vespertine temporal specialists — evening foragers.
“I am not that good at flowers” says Gabby. She’s probably very ‘good’ at flowers, it’s just a few names still unknown, uncalled. Leave the un-names hanging in the air then.
In naming something are we laying claim to it? I claim this — this is me. A caddis fly lava sticking things it comes across to itself, to hide itself.
I am no longer that naked, exposed, vulnerable thing, no, I am this thing now: floriferous, rusting slightly but waiting to be visited by vespertine temporal specialists who will be along before too long.
If, like a camouflage net over a sniper, a proper name or noun could be said to be casting a net over some thing, is it benignly concealing it so it can move freely and unobserved, or would it be an attempt to trap it as if a different kind of net — one for hunting.
Can the naming of some thing tempt us to get closer* or does it impede encountering it with fresh awareness?**
So, this is the scarlet pimpernel who likes to hide, though it is made of the boldest red. Here, take this small corner of the camouflage netting to help you.
*Writers Robert McFarlane and Paul Warde suggest that environmental awareness has been impoverished in relation to the loss of attention to the proper names of things.
**I recall Alan Watts, in relation to Zen Buddhism, wrote something about this and yet can find no reference. If anyone knows it then please let me know.
