The Honey Month, day 13 (2/13/2011)

eta: link added

"Day 13 - Black Locust Blossom Honey

Colour: White-gold dawn.

Smell: White flowers tucked into honeycomb. A watery white flower - lotus, or lily.

Taste: Like fruit and flowers and sugar. This is one to pour onto pancakes; very liquid-sweet, and when I say fruit I mean something between green grapes and yellowgages* without the sour skin. Juicy sweet is this."

Another villanelle today, with a lovely sprightly rhythm, almost bouncy. Hints of Ulysses ad maybe Gaiman's Sandman here - for all the bounciness, a dark tale of addiction. A cautionary tale - be careful what you wish for; you might get it.

* It's a yellow plum; the little ones that you find at the farmer's market towards the end of August. When they are truly ripe, they are fantastic; but too far in either direction - not ripe or over ripe - and they're revolting.

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A note on what's going on here. Two years ago, Amal El-Mohtar began a month long exploration of a variety of honeys, tasting and describing each, and then writing a short piece of fiction, or a poem, or something of that nature which was inspired by the honey of the day. Last year, these posts were collected into a short book - more formal than a simple chapbook, perhaps - called The Honey Month, which I reviewed when it came out. My biggest problem, at that time, was that I ploughed through the book too quickly, and so I resolved to do a more careful reading of it at a later date. That later date is now - the posts were originally a February project, and so there are 28 honey days. This is now February, and I cannot think of a better time to slowly read poems and stories about honey. The material in quotation marks is the description of the day's honey, from the book (so that you get a good taste of Amal's lovely writing), what follows that is a brief thought about the piece of poetry or fiction of that day from yours truly.


In addition to my daily reviews, Amal has been re-running the original posts with what she is describing as "DVD Extras," some commentary on the piece for the day, some discussion of the differences between the original post and the finished piece in the book, and some delicious LJ Honey Month icons. The first of the re-runs is here, and I have been linking the appropriate post via the daily title, above, as the post becomes available. Amal is currently in England (because she is fabulous), and so her sense of what time it is and my sense of what time it is are somewhat askew. And that's ok.