Purloined lace

I've never seen Queen Anne's Lace here on the island, even though it grows all along the roadsides just across the harbour.So when we visited Le Village historique acadien in Lower West Pubnico late last summer I took a dried flower head out of the garden there and shoved it in my pocket. All afternoon I felt the dry crumbly texture of the seed pod coming apart every time I touched it, hidden in its secret place. By behaving in a nonchalant manner I got away from there without being apprehended.

It was about the same time that I was starting the little wildflower garden next to the house. I came home and planted the stolen seeds there.

There's no evidence for it, but some people think Acadians may have lived on this island in the seventeenth century, or at least may have used its rocky shores for drying fish. More certainly they were across the harbour to the west. So --even though it's a wildflower that will grow just about anywhere, and does -- the Queen Anne's Lace that's growing in the garden reminds me of the ghostly presence of Acadians along south shore Nova Scotia.