Just in time for the June full moon . . .

Summertime, and I am captivated by the swifts. From dawn to dusk they fill the sky with their swirling flight and high pitched calls. They are a perfect accompaniment to Night-Blooming Jasmine, a recent addition to the As Potent as a Charm print series of poisonous plants. Cestrum nocturnum is not a true jasmine, but rather a member of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family. Like traditional jasmine, its fragrance is enticing – easy to imagine it wafting through air that’s alive with mesmerizing flight and sounds.

In the Air, relief print

AKA night-blooming jessamine or poisonberry, Night Blooming Jasmine is inscribed on David Lynch’s gravestone at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Completely by chance I now have a lovely Night-Blooming Jasmine of my own – I had no idea it would be featured in Goth Garden Weekend at a local garden shop and greenhouse. But of course it was, and of course I couldn’t resist!

Night-Blooming Jasmine, Cestrum nocturnum

“. . . The swifts are back!
Sure enough, bolt nocks bow to carry one sky-scyther
Two hundred miles an hour across fullblown windfields.
Swereee swereee. Another. And another.
It’s the cut air falling in shrieks on our chimneys and roofs.
The next day, a fleet of high crosses cruises in ether.
These are the air pilgrims, pilots of air rivers. . . “
~ excerpt from Swifts, a poem by Anne Stevenson