QUEEN ANNE LOVES CHICORY JOE
With an apology to Tim Hardin
Each summer, about mid-July, two blossoms emerge on the side of the road. They seem to go and grow together: chicory, and Queen Anne’s lace. The one seems so common to me. Like he’s right at home in the ditch, like he wears a home-made purple work shirt, like he’s a coffee substitute when the money is tight. If one flower could be Amish, it would be chicory.
The other flower is clearly out of place. She’s sumptuous and complicated, tall and refined. She’s a blossom comprised of blossoms, comprised of more blossoms, a fancy flower to the third power. She even has a drop of blood in the center of her being, which came from pricking her finger while tatting, or it’s her soft beating heart, depending on who you ask.
I am giving these flowers human attributes, I know, and some people think that’s wrong. I promise you though, I won’t judge them if they behave other than what I have described, or if they shatter your expectations. Ascribing human attributes is one way we can relate to non-humans. Besides, my dog is actually the most interesting person you may ever meet. Have you shared a drink with him?
Guru, the most engaging dog in the room.
It’s an unlikely pairing, but Chicory Joe and Queen Anne are passionately in love. They’re not even trying to hide it. They stand on the highway shoulder, arms in arms, and radiate to us drivers-by the beauty of tender affection, pure and simple. He is no longer intimidated by her high standing. She has forsworn her regal bearing to love the man of her dreams. “Sensuous and long-legged,” he says of her. She confides “he tastes like coffee.”
Keep your eyes on the road. Slow down first, for the deer and birds you haven’t seen yet. But don’t let the cool summer love of these two beauties escape your notice.
If I were chicory, and you were Queen Anne,
Would you let me look at you, let me be your man?
If I wore a workman’s shirt, and you dressed in lace,
Would you say that you knew me? Let me kiss your face?
