Queen Anne's Lace

In the language of flowers, Queen Anne's Lace represents sanctuary.

This is one of my favorite flowers.

The legend is that Queen Anne, wife to James I,

was challenged to make lace as beautiful as a flower.

While making the lace she pricked her finger.

It's said the red flower at the center of Queen Anne's Lace

represents a droplet of her blood.

It's also sometimes called Bird's Nest

because of its tendency to curl inward resembling a nest.

Queen Anne's Lace is also called Wild Carrot

because it is, a carrot.

It was actually used to create the domesticated carrot.

(I learned that in a Ranger Rick magazine)

Queen Anne's Lace

Her body is not so white as

anemony petals nor so smooth—nor

so remote a thing. It is a field

of the wild carrot taking

the field by force; the grass

does not raise above it.

Here is no question of whiteness,

white as can be, with a purple mole

at the center of each flower.

Each flower is a hand’s span

of her whiteness. Wherever

his hand has lain there is

a tiny purple blemish. Each part

is a blossom under his touch

to which the fibres of her being

stem one by one, each to its end,

until the whole field is a

white desire, empty, a single stem,

a cluster, flower by flower,

a pious wish to whiteness gone over—

or nothing.

~William Carlos Williams