drawn from life · june to august
a low woody mat that runs across the dry ground, leaves no larger than a fingernail's edge, paired all the way down. in midsummer it throws up pink-mauve flower heads, each a tight crowd of tiny tubular florets, and the bees come to it before they come to anything else.
it grows on dry banks, in the cracks of paving, on the south side of an unused wall, in places where the soil is thinnest and the rain runs off fastest. the kitchen variety is its cousin; this one is wilder and smaller and prefers not to be lifted.
laid on the pillow against bad dreams; strewn on the floor of the chapel; given as a posy in May to the walkers setting out before light. the scent on the trodden mat is the strongest argument anyone has ever made for taking a slow walk across a dry hill in the heat of the afternoon.
field note — stepped on a patch by accident and the smell lasted half the day. the bees forgave me almost immediately.