I was clipping husks of pomegranates off the tree last Saturday, knee deep in rosemary and bees.

The weather is whacked – 35 to 40 degree nights and 80 plus degree days, no rain since Thanksgiving. The rosemary is blooming in its proper January, but the trees are popping buds because they think it’s April; the garden couldn’t look more confused. What do we call this – sprinter? wing?

A dormant pomegranate tree is a rat’s nest of grey sticks, skinny and tough. Ours is in the back garden, standing in last year’s crunchy leaf-fall. I leave the split fruit hanging like red leather Christmas ornaments on the bare branches for the December fliers. The male hummingbird who claims this territory sways silently on a high branch, glaring at his rival in the sycamore near the gate.

The rosemary bushes look like fat babies, arms up, elbows that don’t bend yet. Even this hot, the winter sun is soft on the turgid green fingers, crammed with tiny blue flowers. The bees are hooked, bouncing from arm to arm; blue bee heroin. The scent clings to my baggy khakis like pollen on the bees; we share a dense cloud of piney resin and golden dust.

Minus their hint of violet, the flowers would match the sky, that cold-weather blue, darker than spring’s. Paint box blue, bachelor buttons lightened by a dot of titanium white.

With the skeletons of pomegranates on grey wood, I pretend to set the table for lunch, then separate two that look like matched ruby earrings, imagine the frustrated birds that couldn’t get even one nib out of the teasing slash of that whole fruit, too small to open, petrified by the wind.

Gathering leaves, I see a space between reaching branches of rosemary and think hmmm, I could fold my shirt into a pillow and lie down below the buzz, I could look past the lavender, that sea green, past the Easter grass buds on the grey switches to the line-cloud of contrail from a jet so high its roar was lost to the moon, I could lie here while my skin warms to pink, covered by petals and scent, and no one would know.

This piece was originally published on my website (with fewer photographs) and was there entitled "Picked Clean." Recent posts can be found by clicking on Adobe Soup: the Unzipped Life of Candace Mann and scrolling down the home page. Thanks for reading - either here or there.