with a face toward the sky

 Until recently
i have found hellebores difficult flowers to love.

i mean, there is a lot to recommend them:
they appear (in this neck of the woods)
in late winter or very early spring
about the same time snowdrops and crocus open
and they are much larger flowers
but
you have to bend waaay over and carefully lift
the downward facing flowers
or lie on your belly
to get a good look at their very interesting
if forlorn faces.
They just seem so...sad.
When snow drops are courting fairies
and crocus cups opening wide to the sky
hellebores just hang about
finding no reason to look up.

i suppose that's it:
i have never felt charmed by
such a gloomy, hang-dog posture.

 

Breeders have finally succeeded in creating
cultivars that look skyward
and i do find this a much more appealing presence

 even when they are preparing to go to seed

 

Comments

[marly youmans]

I like the outrageous green ones!

[marly youmans]

I do think Kathleen Raine should have put hellebores in "Lenten Flowers." Though it seems just right as is...

[zephyr]

yes...those green ones are really something.
And thank you for the poem. i did not know it and...
oh my goodness.