WINTER SKELETON

Did the title grab your attention? I assure you that no cupboards have been opened, nor was this written on a ghoulish windy night with the moon scudding behind dark clouds accompanied by the screech of owls and pinging of bats in my ears.

Instead, this is a Datura plant – seen here in its spring glory.

This is a different plant at the end of the winter.

The dry stalk is akin to the skeleton of the plant, now stripped of leaves and any life-giving sap that once ran through it. The seed pods too have dried up and shrivelled into spiky shells of their former fruitfulness.

Dry winter winds have long since shaken the pods and dispersed the seeds to grow new plants in disturbed soil wherever they have landed. There is nothing left.

In time the frail skeletal remains of this plant will fall over and gradually become one with the soil that nurtured its beginning.