Shouldn't…but Do

C. terniflora.  A vigorous, late flowering member of the clematis  family.  Mine resides on a wooden lattice fence.  By August, in combination with a half-moon gate, this mature vine voluntarily takes on a trumpeting elephantine shape.

In bloom, hundreds of star shaped flowers exude the fragrance of vanilla, making good on its common name sweet autumn clematis.  A munificent vine, it provides refuge for birds,  bees, and me.

Come autumn,  garnished with scarlet, orange, or yellow zinnia’s for eyes, and other floral accents for bejeweled cape, the Hindu Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles, Lord of  Roads emerges in the  shape of that clematis.   His presence, as with all deities, constitutes both warning and  blessing.

After petal fall, gloriously red coloured fruit – achene –  appear, attached to a plumose style, feathered for flight.  The seed-headed puff balls appear as tangled dancers, sashaying forth, arguing, receding again as the styles fluff and slim with rain, humidity.  Gone to seed, the vine is almost as glorious as full bloom.

By January, sun, storms, and snow have weathered and worked the seed heads to their limit.  The cherry dancers have cleared out, the heated, tangled arguments have lost  importance.  Many seeds remain, now only  in congress with the single whiskered style that might carry them on – that must carry them on – before a new season’s growth surges and laughs at their withered beauty.

Those brown seeds, and the empty receptacles that held their kin, alone, wind torn, represent the full imperative – they are the beginning, they are the end. The tangles are no more.  Cutting winter air brings clarity, leaves only germ, past and future, the seed – all in one.

Though there is moisture all about, locked in snow, small icicles hanging off  crinkled leaves, and stored deep in the root, the vine is dry.   The tangle, for this plant, this season, is done.  Stoic, vulnerable, beautiful in its aged state.  It tells a tale.  Its ends are met.