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
