asakiyume: (glowing grass)
asakiyume ([personal profile] asakiyume) wrote2015-08-31 11:08 pm

Blood on the queen's lace

I discovered this freaky Queen Anne's lace blossom growing beside a very-little-traveled road. It's the sort of thing that would be used in augury, a prophecy that can't bode well. As [livejournal.com profile] stillnotbored remarked, little-traveled roads are great places to dispose of inconvenient bodies. The blossom is proclaiming that the truth will out?



And here are my favorites, the foxtail grasses, golden macro-paramecia, playing in the sun.



ETA: Nope, not for real--see next entry. If only the spray painter knew how well their prank succeeded!

[identity profile] queenoftheskies.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 03:12 am (UTC)(link)
How beautiful!

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:36 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I just hope it's genuine (http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/801710.html?thread=20744366#t20744366) (the queen anne's lace, I mean--the grass definitely is!)

[identity profile] xjenavivex.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
So beautiful

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:35 am (UTC)(link)
I'm glad <3

Thinking of you each day.

[identity profile] yamamanama.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
That red queen anne's lace is amazing.

Queen Mary's lace?

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:22 am (UTC)(link)
Hahaha, I like that: Queen Mary's lace. (Though now I'm wondering if it's even genuine (http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/801710.html?thread=20744366#t20744366))
pameladean: chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly (Libellula julia)

[personal profile] pameladean 2015-09-01 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ!

I really love the photo of the foxtail grasses.

P.

[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
I had the exact same thought!

And there does sit my false sister, Anne
With a hey ho and a bonny o
Who drowned me for the sake of a man
The swans swim so bonny o

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:37 am (UTC)(link)
I was wondering to [livejournal.com profile] sovay whether maybe the odd flower like this are what inspired the notion/legend that flowers will out a murder. I mean, it seems like a natural idea, when you see a red flower that should be white.

Then again, maybe it's just spray paint (http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/801710.html?thread=20744366#t20744366). I'll try to find out.
pameladean: (Default)

[personal profile] pameladean 2015-09-01 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
There's a scary amount of literary reference of this sort.

Now I wonder if Shakespeare was thinking about the ballads.

P.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:32 am (UTC)(link)
Exactly --the very grasses and flowers will testify!

And yeah, the foxtail grass always makes me so happy, when I see it.

[identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 04:51 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, too beautiful for such a cruel augury. Say rather it's a hint of some treasure buried beneath.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:23 am (UTC)(link)
A much, much more pleasant thought, and equally exciting--thank you!

[identity profile] browngirl.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 05:18 am (UTC)(link)
Oh my goodness, that Queen Anne's Lace is a story idea, isn't it?
And the foxtails are so warm and lovely.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:32 am (UTC)(link)
I always want to hug the foxtail grass when I see them. I want to go swimming in the golden light, like they are. (And yes, re: the flower!)
sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)

[personal profile] sovay 2015-09-01 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
Blood on the queen's lace

That's fantastic. Poem? Story? Folktale? Cut a blood-sprung flower and take it home at your own risk . . .

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:25 am (UTC)(link)
I wonder if the presence of sport flowers like this (assuming this really is for real; see my doubts, below (http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/801710.html?thread=20744366#t20744366)) are what inspired that folktale in the first place--if people saw bright red flowers that should by rights have been white and assumed they must have drunk up blood--and then come to the next-step logical conclusion.
sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)

[personal profile] sovay 2015-09-01 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
--if people saw bright red flowers that should by rights have been white and assumed they must have drunk up blood--and then come to the next-step logical conclusion.

Seems plausible to me. Not all ghosts have access to a harp made of bones.

[identity profile] mnfaure.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 06:34 am (UTC)(link)
This is the second time I've seen red Queen Anne's Lace. [livejournal.com profile] clarentine saw some in a garden and shared photos. I'll be keeping my eye out for some when I get back to France. Knowing it should be white makes the red rather morbid, not like stumbling upon a field of poppies.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:18 am (UTC)(link)
You have actually seen some? Because to be honest, I'd begun to be suspicious about whether this maybe represented some kid's prank and I was being (and then inflicting on you guys) too credulous. This queen anne's lace is growing in a complex of abandoned buildings, where kids sometimes come and spray-paint graffiti. I was wondering just now whether someone had spray-painted this. It's just *so* red. What did your red queen anne's lace look like? Was it bright like this?

I need to go back and see if the flower is still there, and examine more carefully.

[identity profile] mnfaure.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 01:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Here is the link to what Chris photographed. https://www.flickr.com/photos/8556491@N07/19934442141/ I see that it is not as red as yours. The name she gives is Daucus Carota "Dara." When I google that, I get more purplish blooms. Some lovely specimens.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 01:49 pm (UTC)(link)
That's *much* more natural-looking (not surprising, since it is, in fact, natural!) I'll link to it in my follow-up entry.

[identity profile] mnfaure.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, the color of hers leans more to the cool red and what you saw to the hot side. So next time those graff artists need to keep that in mind if they want to be more "natural." :P

[identity profile] pdlloyd.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 07:18 am (UTC)(link)
I love the image of the single blood red blossom amongst the Queen Anne's Lace. I like the idea of it being prophecy, rather than marking the spot of a body. But, I do not yet know what prophecy it may mark.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:26 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe something as innocuous as a season of red sunsets--but maybe something more dire!

[identity profile] heliopausa.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 08:40 am (UTC)(link)
What a grim thought! (Though your discovery might be botanically exciting? Maybe it can be named asakeyumii.)

Do you know the Eleanor Farjeon verses that run through several months, and end:

She laughed at me, she blushed at me
with such a pretty grace
that I kissed her in September
through the Queen's own lace.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:21 am (UTC)(link)
What sweet lines! No, I didn't know those--thanks for sharing them.

See my reply (http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/801710.html?thread=20744366#t20744366) to [livejournal.com profile] mnfaure's comment, above... I've suddenly grown suspicious that maybe it's not genuine and that I'm participating in a hoax. I need to go back and look at it again, more carefully--if it's still there.

[identity profile] amaebi.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 12:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh,I haven't thought of that poem for ages and ages. :)

[identity profile] khiemtran.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 09:50 am (UTC)(link)
a prophecy that can't bode well.

True. "Do not eat spaghetti whilst wearing a white shirt..."

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:34 am (UTC)(link)
An admonishment for us to keep in mind tonight--we're going out to celebrate the healing angel's eighteenth birthday. Jackson Pollock shirts for one and all!

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 07:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh no: dateline confusion--it's yet to happen. We'll go in about four hours. Thank you for the good wishes though!

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:18 am (UTC)(link)
I love how the grass catches the light...

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 10:34 am (UTC)(link)
Me toooooo! Like that's what they were made for.

[identity profile] wuweibaby.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 11:09 am (UTC)(link)
Golden macro-paramecia


<3 <3 <3

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 12:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Isn't that what they look like? I love them and want to hug them.

[identity profile] amaebi.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 12:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow, that red Queen Anne's lace is amazing and, as you say, omeny.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2015-09-01 01:00 pm (UTC)(link)
In this case, showing sure signs of intelligent design, but not the kind usually spoken of (i.e., they had the helpful hand of someone with a spray can. (http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/801949.html))