Eglantine, or How a Flower Writes Back
Mount Vernon Eglantine, or How a Flower Writes Back In the old dictionaries of bloom— those Victorian field guides to feelings— Eglantine (sweetbriar) is assigned the audacious job of standing in for poetry, as if a plant could be trusted with the entire inventory of metaphor. Consider the evidence. A blossom that smells not only of heaven but of apples when the leaves are bruised, green thinking ripening under pressure, a scent released by contact, as if language required friction to admit it has a flavor. Its hips arrive later, small red afterthoughts, edible, yes—vitamin C in a modest disguise, proof that beauty occasionally packs a lunch. The stems defend themselves with thorns that prefer the term prickles, botanically precise, a reminder that accuracy can still draw blood. Poetry behaves the same way. Approach it casually and it will annotate you. Handle it poorly and it will correct your grip. Bruise a line and it smells like something else, memory, orchard, a sentence rememberi...
